Madea's Family Reunion (2006): Dir: Tyler Perry / Cast: Tyler Perry, Lynn Whitfield, Rochelle Aytes, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, Blair Underwood: Sequel to Diary of a Mad Black Woman where a family unites under the ruling of one peculiar grandmother. Strong subplots including a mother who is charmed by a bus driver who has a son of his own. She is unable to accept his love due too her mother's dominating nature. Her sister is her mother's favourite but she held within an abusive relationship with the man she is suppose to marry. Tyler Perry not only directs this film but he also handles many other areas including portraying Madea. With convincing makeup he has created Madea into a show of force with comic payoff. Unfortunately she is involved in an unnecessary subplot regarding a teenager put in her care. In supporting roles is Lynn Whitfield as Victoria, forceful mother who reveals the source of her behaviour and the consequences that accompany it. Rochelle Aytes plays her daughter forced into an abusive relationship and encouraged to regain her dignity. Lisa Arrindell Anderson plays the other daughter whose relationship with the bus driver is predictable but nonetheless charming. Blair Underwood also makes an appearance amongst the chaos. Themes regard relationships and family issues resulting in a family reunion well worth attending. Score: 9 / 10

i would like to start by saying; going to movies was originally made so you could escape reality, that's why star wars and lord of the rings where such hits; if i need to identify with reality, there's reality TV i am hoping that one day a black man would make a movie so intriguing, mind boggling and mentally challenging that it would sell across all races. All i see in black movies is a myopic view of life, for godsake we have Korean's making a visually artistic movie called "D-War" i believe that our talents don't end with sports, singing, Sit-coms (no offense to friends) stand up comedy; we need to be more creative, explore the outer limits of life. i feel a guy like John Singleton could put together a water tight script that would hit the nail in the head.

Having grown up in the rural south, I am well schooled when it comes to home grown Christmas trees and the run of the mill cedar tree. But, I'm afraid all that working knowledge of sap couldn't have prepared me for "Medea's Family Reunion." Those of you who are diabetic, I would avoid this sickeningly sweet melodrama at all costs.My one hope is the girls hanging from the ceiling during the over the top wedding scene towards the end were well paid for the hours they must have been dangling there. Is that a spoiler? Oh, lord...let me spoil it further....Let's see...we have molestation, family dysfunction, marrying rich, domestic violence, overbearing mothers, and a saccharine soliloquy from Cycelie Tyson to-boot. Oh, and let's not forget the beat the crap out of the child for laughs angle. Honestly, does any one edit films anymore? "Madea's Family Reunion" is like the worst soap opera, after school special, public service announcement, and bad Flip Wilson homage rolled into one. Tyler Perry made the mistake of directing his own script. Of course, one could argue that his sitting down to write it might have been his first offense.If you want to see Tyler Perry do bad drag and think it's funny, I'd say watch this film. If you want to see every emotion in hyperbole acted out on the screen in front of you, and if you still have the wherewithal to endure it, watch this film. If you're looking for anything of substance, outside of a Judge Maybelline cameo, I'd look elsewhere.

Tyler Perry's directorial movie debut was the second adaptation of his stage plays to make it to the big screen. Initially released in 2002 as a filmed version of the stage play, "Madea's Family Reunion" has its roots in the gospel musical; melodramatic morality plays with titles like "Your Arms Are Too Short To Box With God", several plot lines, lots of speechifying, and plenty of shouted comments from audiences of middle-aged evangelical Black women in brightly colored hats.The big screen adapation is a follow-up to Perry's first screenplay "Diary of a Mad Black Woman". Perry reprises his role as Madea (aka Mabel Simmons), a big-bosomed take-no-crap-but-ultimately-kind-hearted grandmother/aunt/anchor of an extended Black family in Atlanta whose house serves as a kind of refuge for troubled young female relatives. He also plays Madea's lecherous pot-smoking brother Joe and lawyer Brian who constantly gets Madea out of legal trouble brought about by her Samaritan actions. This time around Madea takes in unwed mother of two Vanessa (Lisa Arrindell Anderson) and rebellious foster child Nikki (Keke Palmer). The drama gets compounded when Vanessa's sister Lisa (Rochelle Aytes) shows up, fleeing from her abusive fiancé played by Blair Underwood. Nikki is disciplined and cared for by Madea, Vanessa ends up falling in love against her will with a perfect puppydog-eyed deep-voiced selfless man named Frankie (Boris Kojoe), and Lisa struggles to leave her fiancé against the will of her mother played by Lynn Whitfield.Perry's first attempt at movie direction is pretty straightforward and fairly competent. There are bright spots. Lynn Whitfield is excellent as the cruel mother, the scenes with Madea are funny, and Underwood is good in what must be his third go-around as the guy who doesn't get the girl. The poetry reading in the jazz cafe is really atmospheric. and the poetry read by Maya Angelou is very uplifting.Where "Reunion" falters is in the clichés. When Underwood slaps Rochelle Aytes the audience can actually count from five to one the split second it happens. Some of the romantic dialogue spoken by Kojoe is cringeworthy. Comedy bits with Madea move jarringly to over-the-top melodrama involving battered women, child abuse, and incest. Tyler Perry plays Joe in a painfully unfunny flatulence humor monologue that apparently attempts to mimic the family dinner scene played by Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor". The old men leering at the young girls at the family reunion(!) is disturbing. Cicely Tyson's impromptu sermon about the decline of morals in the Black community in the middle of a barbecue(?) may work on stage to an audience that is expecting to be preached at, but on the big screen in a multiplex it's a bit much. The set where the final wedding scene takes place features a church draped in blinding white lace and curtains with real human beings dressed like angels suspended from the ceiling; in such bad taste it's ALMOST funny, but not.None of this matters, of course, to the God-fearing over-30 Black women Tyler Perry aims his plays and movies at. They flocked to theatres to make "Madea's Family Reunion" the number one movie at the box office its opening weekend. No one else is making movies for them, and as long as Tyler Perry does he's going to continue to laugh all the way to the bank.