The quarterly dividend from Tyler Perry Inc. is out, and fans/investors will be happy to see that the company has renewed its focus on its core business, putting Perry in a wig, dress and over-sized glasses.
"Madea's Big Happy Family" is stuffed to the gills with Perry's mix of the sacred and the silly and a serious dose of self-help for the self-absorbed.
It's as messy as any of Perry's Madea comedies -- assorted characters doing weakly-connected one-off scenes that are little more than extended riffs. And there's the feeling that Perry's ambitions are pulling him away from this character and this world. But if that's the case -- and "Big Happy Family" does seem to wrap most everything about the extended Simmons/Brown/etc. clan of Atlanta up in a neat little harangue -- at least Perry leaves it all on the court. Which is to say, he and his ensemble are funnier than they've been in ages.
Madea's niece, Shirley (Loretta Devine), is sick with "the cancer." And when she's done with her religious rationalizing -- "Every day that God gives us is a gift, and when He stops giving'em, I get to be with Him," she resolves to round up her family to give them the news over a big dinner.
The joint-smoking/chain-smoking Aunt Bam (Cassi Davis, a hoot) has been her only help. But Shirley's kids are a problem. They won't sit down together.
Byron (Shad "Bow Wow" Moss) is in and out of jail, dealing with a monstrous baby mama and his new girlfriend, who insists that she be "kept."
Tammy (Natalie Desselle Reid) is a nagging shrew raising two insolent, ill-mannered brats.
And Kimberly (Shannon Kane) is a harridan in her own right, too mean and rich to want to spend time with her mother or siblings.
