Ten seconds into Peeples, I realized that I had boarded as sinking ship. In the opening scene, Craig Robinson is revealed to be a guy who sings to kids at the library, but the song he's singing is called "Speak It! - Don't Leak It!" which, if I understood correctly, is a song that encourages the kids to express their emotions rather than urinating on things. Why? Why sing that song? What is the message? Why would anyone allow him to sing that song? I know I'm being over-analytical but it gets the movie started on the wrong foot. What's worse is that this song provides the movie's payoff.Peeples is an unbearable comedy; a movie hammered together out of spare parts from better comedies and laid out on a foundation borrowed from failed sitcoms. It has the kind of dialogue that sounds weird without a laugh track and a plot that ebbs toward Meet the Parents but doesn't even bother to come up with any jokes or any genuine feeling for any of the characters. It's a shooting gallery, a joke is set up and knocked down. There is no attempt to pull the comedy from human nature.Robinson plays Wade Walker a nice guy from New York with designs on being a child therapist. For some time he's been dating Grace (Kerry Washington), and wants to take their relationship to the next level. Wade wants so badly to propose that he walks around with the ring in his pocket 24/7. There's just one little hitch: Grace hasn't told her family that she's dating him. Why? Simple. The plot needs her to keep Wade a secret so all kinds of hi-jinks can take place over the course of a weekend. She's headed off the Sag Harbor for a Moby Dick celebration (you can guess where that idea is going) but wants him to stay behind.Not to be outdone, Wade crashes the proceedings and hi-jinks ensue. Grace's family is a bizarre mix, and not in the good way. Her mother Daphne (S. Epatha Merkerson) is a former disco diva who overcomes her alcoholism by smoking pot. Her sister (Kali Hawk) is a CNN anchor and closeted lesbian who travels around with her camerawoman/partner Meg (Kimrie Lewis-Davis) but hasn't given the news to the family even though Meg spouts poetry at the dinner table about being intimate with her. Her brother Simon (Tyler James Williams) is a math genius and kleptomaniac with designs on being a thug. Then there's Virgil (David Alan Grier) a federal judge who is a perfectionist and a lion when it comes to protecting the family – even in places where it isn't needed. He's a bitter old snort who regards Wade like a cockroach.I don't know exactly how to describe the next 90 minutes. It's the kind of disjointed, unfunny series of shenanigans and hi-jinks that would kill a sitcom in the pilot. The jokes are designed to make Wade look like a jerk while we wait for all of the family's secrets to come spilling out of the closet. What is troubling is that the movie has no narrative flow. It feels like just a series of set-ups and put-downs that seem to have been written by different people on different days and then just hammered into the script.There are plot points here that are brought up and have nothing to do with anything. For example, Wade hears that Virgil is going to play at a local jazz club. He goes to the club and finds that Virgil isn't there. He looks for him and finds him headed for a nude beach. The joke, of course, is that Wade is devastated to have seen Virgil's testicles. But the scene goes nowhere. He returns to the house, doesn't tell Grace about it and then it's not brought up again until a vague explanation at the end. There's no comedic payoff and the scene is just left laying there. There are at least ten scenes like this, but no attempt to really deal with anything. The movie shoves the characters through a series of comic sketches but the screenwriters seem to timid or too lazy to deal with these people as people. What's worse is that there is a genuine bad feeling from this cast. No one seems to want to be here. The characters are written as petty and hostile and indifferent to one another. This movie is an unpleasant experience.So, is the movie funny? No. I smiled once, at a line from Robinson about Uncle Ben and Bojangles. Other than that, I mostly regarded this film with blistering indifference. Doing research before the movie, I wasn't surprised to find that Peeples is a Tyler Perry production. Perry is this century's P.T. Barnum, a talentless charlatan who has turned a lack of any writing or filmmaking skill into a billion dollar enterprise. People flock to his movies presumably to have a good time but what Perry gives them is the same kind of garbage that the audience would turn off if they caught it on television.Thus far, I've seen three films that he's been involved with - Tyler Perry's Single Moms Club, Tyler Perry's Temptation and Peeples (I don't count Star Trek) - and I find them painfully unwatchable. All three seemed to have been written and produced with the kind of grace and ingenuity of that urination song that Robinson sings at the beginning. This movie is aggressively bad.

What kind of judge has a huge estate that rivals anything available in Beverly Hills, CA? Has he got something going on the side? We never know. The premise of the film is thin and moves at break-neck speed, perhaps so viewers won't recognize the story-line is bereft of focus. There's little for the viewer to connect with.The rookie director just didn't bring out actor-ability or premise texture. You just wanted to grind ahead, hoping something up front would be better than the humorless scenes that passed. Even Tyler Williams (from TV's "Everybody Hates Chris") seemed out of place and overdone. The film really needed the likes of ice Cube to loosen it up and send it on a much more plausible and amusing entertainment trip.A funny film?? Who says? ~mm

Watching Peeples turned out to be a pleasant way to pass time while I'm away from home on an extended business trip. I remember seeing the Peeples trailers on TV and online last year, but I forgot about the movie until I browsed on Netflix. Granted, the movie definitely isn't Oscar material, but it's definitely a fun movie to watch. There have been movies I've viewed that made me regret I wasted my time watching them and left me feeling upset because I couldn't get that 90 or 120 minutes back. Peeples isn't one of those movies. Peeples is a movie that is relaxing to watch. You won't burn too much white matter viewing the movie, but it makes one think about pretentiousness and 'rich people's problems' can be. Don't go in with seriousness when you watch this movie. It's lighthearted with the feathery touches on love, humor, priorities, family, acceptance and life choices. I didn't know Tyler Perry made the movie until I viewed the credits. It didn't make a difference, but it surprised me that he made it. He's definitely changing up his movie- making style or at least adding to it. I enjoyed the movie. I'll watch it again with my family on movie night. It's kind of cute how Kerry Washington claps her hands in happiness in Peeples like she did in Django. David Allen Grier made for a very unlikely patriarch, but he pulled it off nicely due to the nice chemistry with S. Epatha Merkerson and the other cast members who made up the family and his conflicts with Craig Robinson. I liked the entire cast. I hope Tyler Perry makes a Peeples II. He can polish it up a bit for the naysayers or leave it 'as is' for a nice continuation, but I fell in love with the Peeples clan. They truly have room to develop as characters on screen. It would be interesting to see what Tyler Perry comes up with in the sequel. I'm going to buy a ticket to go to the movie theater if he brings the lovable clan back to life in a sequel, though.

Wow. I was so impressed with this film I created an IMDb account just to rate it! The trailer really didn't do it any justice at all. After the first five minutes, things really got going and I never stopped laughing. I honestly didn't expect much from the movie and went out to support the actors and director-because I love them. When I say this movie will have you bursting with laughter I'm not lying! Aside from that, Kerry Washington has never looked more stunning. I was literally in awe of her beauty the whole time-she showed up and showed out! David Alan Grier has never been funnier. The son truly stole the show. And of course, the lead character Wade had crazy good comedic timing. With that said, I'm not going to lie there were a few awkward moments in the first five minutes. But everything after that made up for it. I think it is receiving low ratings because some people genuinely don't like Tyler Perry at this point. And, the film featured some content Perry's loyal fans might not be used to. It's their loss. Everyone involved should be proud of this film. This is going down as a classic in my book-one of those movies where black life would be different, less lush, less rich and less funny without it! I wish I were a Peeples. I can't wait to buy the DVD!@lona