Boo! A Madea Halloween
is the twelfth appearance of the character Madea and is directed by, written by,
produced by, and stars Tyler Perry. In this latest entry the character Brian
(Perry) enlists the help of Madea (Perry) to watch over his teenage daughter
(Diamond White) to make sure she didn’t leave the home to go to a Halloween
frat party in the area. I certainly am not the biggest fan of Madea as a
character and have only seen a smattering of her films, however I have to
confess I got some enjoyment out of this film even if it has some serious
flaws.
Beginning with the positives, I thought this film was fairly
funny. This is probably the most important baseline for a comedy and I think
this film hits that. It wasn’t constantly “laugh out loud” funny but there were
some scenes with really excellent comedy and some great zingers throughout that
really worked with the delivery Perry and others brought to them. On that note,
I also want to compliment the performance Perry brought to this film. He plays
three characters in this film and manages to give them all life and interesting
elements, however the character he shines as is Madea where he really executes
every element of that performance extremely well for what it was. I thought
that Cassi Davis as Aunt Bam was a comedic scene stealer in this film as she
had so many moments that were too good to pass up.
I also thought that the way this film slides a message into
an otherwise nonsense comedy film was clever and worked. This is obviously not
foreign to Tyler Perry films that usually have a religious message (though this
film mostly avoids that) this film really takes on the parent/child
relationship. Not that this is in any way relevant to anyone else, but I could
see a lot in this message and the views of the characters that I could relate to
in my own upbringing which did make me connect with the film somewhat more. I
do think that the range of thoughts and perspectives it offers will allow it to
connect with a broad base of people and make this film effective at what it’s
trying to accomplish.
Despite hitting a lot of the baselines a good film in the
genre needs to achieve, Boo! A Madea
Halloween has some serious issues. For starters, this movie is very poorly
shot and directed. Things are positioned weirdly, the framing is poor, and for
some reason there were imperfections in the image that would come and go
throughout that was very distracting for me watching this film. Tyler Perry
obviously has a character he knows is successful and though I cannot weigh in
on this fully I’ve come to understand his direction has improved. The
improvement is not good enough for me to give it a pass however. Additionally,
it’s not as if this film tries any difficult shots and fails. Everything in it
is very conventional and to fail and be conventional is unacceptable in a major
feature film.
In addition to direction issues, this film also features
some poor dialogue moments, some characters that didn’t land, and a weird and
abrupt conclusion. I thought that for every couple funny moments, there was a
moment that induced a negative physical reaction. That’s not a great record and
was something I really wish was avoided in this film. I also thought for as
good as Madea, Brian, Aunt Bam, and Joe were, there were some rough characters.
The real standouts in this negative distinction were Patrice Lovely as Hattie
and Liza Koshy as Aday. I really didn’t connect with what they did with their
characters and they detracted from my experience. The film is also very abrupt
story and setting-wise in many ways. It felt like a stage play at times where
they would announce and noticeably move from set to set in the film. I couldn’t
stop thinking about this which made it tough to buy into what was actually
going on in the narrative. It all culminated at the end with a conclusion that
just came kind of out of nowhere and has some issues with the characters’
previous motivations and choices.
Overall, Boo! A Madea
Halloween is certainly not a great movie, nor a good one for that matter.
It provides some temporary, harmless entertainment with a kind of interesting
serious message and then will drift into obscurity until it reappears on cable
during October in the future. If you don’t like Madea at all, you won’t get
anything from this. If you find that character somewhat entertaining I don’t
think you’ll leave feeling like you wasted your time. This movie isn’t terrible
either and I had a reasonably good time with it as a whole.
Ryan’s Score: 4.5/10
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