Released: 01/27/06

Viewed: 9:55pm 01/27/06

Starring: Martin Lawrence, Nia Long, Kat Dennings, Emily Procter, Zachary Levi,

Directed by: John Whitesell

Martin Lawrence is struggling. I love him and his movies to death, but after a string of flops and a very public battle/recovery with drugs, this former heavy hitter is desperate for a hit. That explains why he's so willing to suit up in the heavy padding from his 2000 Blockbuster Big Momma's House

Big Momma's House was never one of his best movies, but it certainly was funny, and it certainly was successful. It showed Lawrence doing what he does best - adopting multiple characters and improvising up a storm. Some may claim that Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers trail blazed this "genre" when their Nutty Professor and Austin Powers franchises became such hits, but people forget that Lawrence paid his dues playing 5 or 6 different characters on the show that made him a star Martin. It was funny then, why wouldn't it be funny now.

Truth is it's absolutely hysterical. I'm not going to lie ? I was drunk as a skunk and with my girl and one of my best boys, and we were ready to laugh. I'm sure that played a major role in us enjoying the movie, but for all it's faults Big Momma's House 2 is an assault of situational humor that had me laughing hard every 40 seconds.

The sequel takes place a few years after the end of the original. Malcolm (Lawrence) has married his flame from the first movie Nia Long and settled into a nice safe desk job in the police department. It's that old story where the former glory hound is desperate to live his adventurous life again. So when an opportunity arises, he breaks out the Big Momma make up (that he saved for some creepy reason) and starts lying to everyone. I had no problem with the set up. It led to a less interesting opening then the original films Korean-dog-fight-shakedown, but it makes sense. It's good character progression.

Big Momma he becomes a nanny to a family and has to take care of the kids and the house, sort of like The Pacifier with more sass. I had no problem with this either. The family was great, I love that kid that jumps off stuff, and it's just set up for humorous things to happen. Awesome.

My only problem plot wise was what drove Malcolm to dress up again and investigate the family. It was a thin story about the leak of defense plans that I never felt was explained properly. It was more like "There's a problem! What's the problem? It's Big! Where's my thongs!?" But I feel bad complaining because more plot would have meant less funny, and to be honest I didn't need too much plot to enjoy the humor. If you're going into Big Momma's House 2 looking for a scintillating crime story, then you're in the wrong theater.

There were a couple of things in the story I would have like to see differently. The first film featured Paul Giamatti as Malcolm's partner, and he was great. Paul is one of the big boys right now so I never expected him to show up in the sequel, but the dynamic they had as partners was one of the best parts of the first movie. Malcolm is much more of a loan Wolf in this movie, eventually working with a few hysterical FBI agents, but always at arms length.

I also would have liked to see the kids discover Malcolm's identity early on. Doing that would have set up a great situation of kids vs. parents, plus seeing them help him crack the case would have been pretty funny. I'm sure there are reasons this didn't happen. What do I know? I draw cartoons.

What amazes me the most about Big Momma's house 2 is that it's able to get a little crazy, have a ton of laughs, and still keep it family friendly. The older I get the bigger I realize that is. I'm going to have kids a=in a few years, and I don't want JLCM to start sucking just because I can only see the family films. Crap, I'm screwed.

I promise you now that 9 out of 10 people reading this review won't see Big Momma's House in the theater. That's cool. Movies are expensive and it definitely pays to be selective. And 9 out of 10 people reading this are all about Memento and Fight Club and Batman, and that's cool too. I love those movies! They're all perfect 10s, and believe me, when one comes out I won't mess around. I'll tell you straight out (Best bet in the distant future looks like V for Vendetta. Just keep it on your radar.) But there is a place for Big Momma's House 2. If you're looking for cheesy, obvious, dangerously close to lame, but also honest laughs, it's a good direction to look.

7 out of 10. I'm giving it a hard 7 based nearly 100% on the big laughs. I was belly laughing and high fiving Irv pretty consistently, even at moment's that aren't supposed to be funny. So we just had a good time. If a movie can do that for me, then it deserves a high grade. Good luck with this one Martin, I hope it does well. I'll keep showing up either way. .

DVD worthy?: I don't know. It was pretty funny, but I've got a lot of funny DVD's that don't involve men pretending to be women.

If you liked this movie check out: White Chicks

White Chicks was a really crappy movie, but somehow it was a huge hit as I'm sure Big Momma's House 2 will be, because these movies make people laugh. White Chicks brings together all the best plot elements of the Big Momma's House movies and adds vulgarity. They don't have to play it up to kids so the dirty jokes are flying all over the place. It wouldn't be a Wayans brother's movie without a little sexual innuendo or a proper fart joke would it?

As offensively bad of a movie as it is, as bad as the disguises are, it's still a really really funny movie. Terry Crews singing 1,000 miles may have been the funniest thing I'd seen that year on the big screen. It's one of those movies you have to give yourself to. It's gonna suck a little, just be ready for it.

Trailer Hitch: Block Party

Holy crap, Block Party looks too cool. Basically Dave Chappelle gets together all his favorite musicians to come together and have a big ass party. I'm not even a huge hip hop fan, but it still looks awesome. I've missed Chappelle. Will Block Party answer questions about Chappele's Show, why he ran off, why he came back, what's next? Probably not, but he IS back, and he's ready to party. I've got my 40. Let's do this.

Today's incentive image is a continuation of the comic, and is the real explanation why a switch like that would never work long term. Thanks for the votes guys. It really does help.

Non movie related stuff:

So that was comic number 99 meaning that the next one is 100 (Uh-duuuhhhh), which marks the first real significant Milestone for JLCM. 50 was nice, but this is triple digits! I'm excited about that mark and it's had me thinking a lot about where the strip has gone in the past 10 months. Anyway more on that in the next strip!

Phil came by today to drop off some schwag and he was able to show me how the strips looked on his Ipod. Gotta say it was pretty cool to see them that size, and to see that they were legible. The only ones that are a miss are the first two I did: Sin City and the Dark Side strips. I was still testing the waters, not really sure of how it worked, but I've since found my method. Can't wait to show these to folks at the NY convention next month!