The Password is Swordfish

After failing to see Big Momma’s House 2, I was enormously afraid I wouldn’t be able to jump right in and understand the events of Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. No worries– they barely keep continuity and logic in this film by itself, much less with the whole trilogy. Instead of trying to neatly summarize everything insane and awful about this film, I instead typed and fleshed out every note I took for your benefit. Spoilers abound, but don’t worry– if you want the ending to Big Mommas preserved, you’re taking it more seriously than they did. It’s an unbelievable, uncomfortable, and upsetting film, which tries desperately hard to be cool and relevant. Please enjoy my notes, enclosed within.

– Ken Jeong appears right at the beginning as a Chinese mailman. Martin Lawrence is chasing him in order to get his mail early. Sample dialogue for Martin: “You realize I’m packin’, don’t ya? I could pop one in ya ass!!” Sample dialogue for Ken: “Tru dat, tru dat.”

– Wait a minute… MARTIN LAWRENCE’S CHARACTER FROM THE FIRST BIG MOMMA’S HOUSE ON WENT TO DUKE?

– We meet Brandon Jackson’s character, as he’s holding the world’s smallest public rap concert. His name is Prodi-G (as if the new spelling would prevent him from getting sued by Mobb Deep). Martin Lawrence finds him, unplugs one plug, and the booming speakers, mics, lights, etc. all go off.

– Sample dialogue for Brandon Jackson’s friends: “That’s some Nazi Germany shnizzle!!” (Author’s note: if I’ve misspelled shnizzle, please correct me.)

– Sample dialogue for Brandon Jackson: “I ain’t goin’ to no lame college when I could be on the road makin’ money!!”

– “DAAAAAMN!” count: 1 about 10 minutes in.

– Brandon Jackson’s friend tells him to surprise his stepdad at work. His response: “Ambush him on his grind? Yeah, I’m feelin’ you. That’s why I keep ya on the payroll.” This raises so many questions. 1. Doesn’t he know his stepfather works for the FBI? 2. When he sees his dad driving through seedy motels with strange men wearing wires, wouldn’t he understand? 3. Would it have killed him to just say, “Good idea”? Did we need all of that extra stuff to try to vainly establish his character’s street cred? (He has none– he got into Duke.) 4. What kind of payroll does a 17-year-old have?

– The Russian villain’s name is Cherkov. It’s funny because it sounds like Jerk Off.

– The wire the snitch is wearing is a big clunky lavalier mic. Has wire technology not advanced in the year 2010?

– The realization moment for Brandon Jackson’s character:  “That means… he’s gonna kill me? Oh man… that is NOT hot!”

– This is the most stilted acting from a Russian mobster bad guy I’ve ever seen. We couldn’t get Steve Buscemi? Christopher Walken? Richard Roxburgh? Hell, give me Eric Roberts!

– When Martin makes the very logical assertion that he’s going to hide Brandon, his reply is: “Hide? Pshh… how you gon’ hide a swag big as this?” It’s at this point I realize two things: 1. They might as well have made Brandon’s character white, because he’s so obnoxiously fake as a thug that every line of dialogue makes you cringe. 2. There’s zero way he would have gotten into Duke.

– Fifteen minutes in, and we have our first nutshot! Brandon Jackson refuses to talk in a high voice, so Martin Lawrence squeezes his stepson’s genitals, causing him to emit a high-pitched squeal with bugged-out eyes that lasts far longer than it should.

– I’ve neglected to mention a key plot point up to now. The snitch with intel on the Russian mob? He hid his flash drive with all of the info on it at– wait for it– the Georgia Girl’s School For The Arts, the most clunkily named school in the history of schools. Martin reasonably asks, “Why did you hide it there?” The snitch’s classic response: “I know a guy!” I predict at this point that Martin will grow to respect Brandon’s musical talents, and that Brandon will grow to understand that it’s cool to be smart. Just a longshot guess though.

– The dean of the school is a hot Latina. Nothing more to note, but it’s the first thing that made me sit up in my chair.

– You know, being a white man, it’s difficult for me to assume when something is racially offensive, but when Martin introduces himself as Hattie Mae, says (s)he grew up so poor they went to Kentucky Fried Chicken to lick other people’s fingers, and then begins to cartoonishly pantomime licking his own fingers, I feel compelled to bury my head in shame.

– “DAAAAAMN!” count: 2 about 25 minutes in. A girl walked out of her dorm wearing nothing but a towel. They’ve replaced horny Martin Lawrence from the first two with horny Brandon Jackson. Now, Martin gets to do things like hit Brandon in the head and stomp on his toes whenever he says something lewd. Also noteworthy: apparently, when a human male says something lewd in a female voice, his voice ALWAYS turns back to male-sounding, despite no one else being able to figure it out.

– Hey, remember Paul Giamatti in the first one? They couldn’t find a way to bring him back?

– I can’t help but think about the movie Tootsie. Dustin Hoffman was always concerned about actually behaving like a woman, getting fully into his disguise, never letting on. These two CONSTANTLY behave like men and act out of character, and no one ever notices. When Brandon Jackson recognizes a girl from his concert, he says, “Hey, you’re that hot girl from the Promenade,” in his normal voice. She says, “I’m sorry?” He then does a cartoonish, totally incoherent ramble about how she’s not hot, it was the Promenade that was hot, but it’s not that she’s not hot, but at the place everyone was hot. The girl, who if she had a brain in her head would’ve walked away, laughs and says, “You’re funny!” If only that were true, hot girl.

– Immediately after this, Martin bangs his fork on a napkin container in rhythm for roughly 15 seconds, saying things like, “Ugh! I’m feelin’ that beat!” He then says, “Anyways, let me introduce myself.” Was this a segue? A missed joke? A random bit of improvisation that the director decided for some reason to slide in at a moment where it makes zero sense?

– JESUS CHRIST. I’m almost done with this. It just became Fame. They make Brandon Jackson perform before eating, since it’s a school for the arts, and the bitchy girl in charge sees this as some form of cruel hazing. So he starts rapping like a girl, and no one responds… until the hot girl steps to the piano and starts playing a hip hop beat. He keeps rapping (horribly, I might add), and then SHE SINGS A PERFECTLY CORNY HIP HOP CHORUS. AND EVERYONE GETS UP AND STARTS DANCING. They even toss away their food and start banging their trays on the table. Synchronized dance steps? Check. Random cowbell gets pulled out of a purse? Check. Big Momma dances on a table until she falls and breaks it? Check. The success of the rap makes the bitchy girl inexplicably mad. This makes me long for the subtlety and realism of Glee.

– The Asian girl who had the towel on earlier is the stereotype of a girl who has a boyfriend who treats her badly, and every girl at the school keeps reassuring her that the boyfriend is actually in love with her in order to keep her from crying. In my experience with women and their friends, this is never ever EVER the case.

– “DAAAAAMN!” count: 3 about 30 minutes in. Brandon sees the hot girl he likes in a nightgown.

– Faizon Love plays Curtis Cool, the inevitable over-the-top black man who thinks that Big Momma is sexy. He puts his all into it, and he deserves better than this material. He’s also the guy who the snitch knew, and now Martin Lawrence needs. Of course.

– First line that made me smile: Faizon Love checking out Big Momma’s ass and saying, “God, I forgive you for the nineties.”

– Jasmine, the bitchy girl, stole the music box that Martin believes contains the flash drive which the snitch gave to Curtis Cool and so Brandon Jackson has to– oh, never mind. If it takes longer to explain the plot of a film than it does to explain the heist in Ocean’s 11, then it’s too complicated– especially for a movie about guys in fat girl suits.

– Nutshot #2: Brandon Jackson has to do ballet, in a spectacularly unfunny montage. He falls onto the conveniently located Big Momma, who then gets to emit a high-pitched squeal and say, “Now I know why they call it the Nutcracker.” Even though every girl in the room is looking at them on the ground, not one person notices the nut joke.

– The sequence in which Big Momma becomes the nude model is pretty much only a set-up for Faizon Love to walk in and say “BOOM SHAKA LAKA LAKA!” He’s the only thing with energy in this film– much like Terry Crews was the only thing with energy in White Chicks.

– Shopping montage between Brandon Jackson and the hot chick only exists to have a cheap gag in which she undresses and he freaks out. Then, taking a page directly from Some Like It Hot, he tries setting her up with “his cousin Trey, who’s a hip-hop lyrical miracle.” Even though he’s on the run from the bad guys, he will expose himself in public in order to go on a date with this girl.

– The “DAAAAAMN!” count is up to 5. He DAAAAAMNed two more times as the hot girl was describing her ideal man.

– Martin and Brandon finally do some bonding as Martin sings Temptations and Brandon alters the lyrics to make it into a rap song. They then dance as Martin does the Cleveland Shuffle and Brandon does the most awkward Souljah Boy dance I’ve ever seen.

– Now I’m just confused. Brandon Jackson’s friends just bumped into him. Do they live in Atlanta? If so, why would Martin and Brandon stay IN town? If the Russians have a mole at the FBI, wouldn’t they know Martin Lawrence dresses like Big Momma? Why would Brandon Jackson go out into public on a date as himself, especially to somewhere where his friends might bump into him? Why are the Russians tailing his friends non-stop– just in case they accidentally find him? Wouldn’t the Russians have seen Brandon Jackson in that case? I’m clearly looking far too deeply for any sort of thought in a film where the central joke is Black Man Makes Funny Fat Woman Fall Down.

– Faizon Love and Big Momma playing Twister. Don’t know how much more I can take. At least it’s more interesting than the boring earnest date between Brandon Jackson and the hot girl. Another boring rapping-singing collaboration… she thinks this’ll get her into college?

– Dialogue on the date: Brandon- “Let’s break night.” Hottie- “Break night? I like that. You’re so amazing with words.”

– I haven’t given credit where credit is due. One of the Russian cronies is mildly amusing. When they put on the Prodi-G mixtape, he started humorously nodding his head. Then, when Brandon Jackson went into a room as a boy and came out as a girl, he said, “Two girls in one night… nice.” The cliched villainous crony who likes the hero despite his position in the conflict is usually fairly reliable.

– Big Momma pursues the Russians by making a student driver chase them. This does lead to the inexplicable line by the crony: “Great. I’m being chased by a fat lady in a driver’s ed car!” He should win some sort of prize for saying this line with a straight face.

– The most awkward, convoluted moment of all time: when performing their duet at the showcase, Brandon Jackson forgets he’s rapping and singing as a girl, and all of a sudden starts rapping as a guy. I started cringing, not because I felt bad he’d been discovered, but at the clumsiness of the circumstance. There was no easier way for him to reveal himself to her?

– The ending has nothing notably cringeworthy or awful, just all astonishingly mediocre. It is peculiar that he keeps speaking as Big Momma despite everyone knowing he’s a man now. They use their Cleveland Shuffle dance to disarm two of the bad guys, and the final one is tazed by Faizon Love, who gets to say, “I’m Curtis Cool… and I just fried this fool.” I imagine Mr. Love in bed at home reading the script encountering that line, crossing it out, and drawing lots of dollar signs around the scratch marks.

– We end with a music video from The Notorious PHD. He’s learned to be a man. And the video has the hot girlfriend singing and the women from the school dancing. That’s why parents send their kids to arts schools– to be video hoes!

Final note: Big Mommas– Dislike Father, Dislike Son.

~ by russellhainline on February 20, 2011.

Posted in Film Reviews
Tags: Big Momma's House, Big Momma's House 3, Big Mommas: Like Father, Brandon Jackson, Jessica Lucas, Like Son, Martin Lawrence, Paul Giamatti, Portia Doubleday