Martin
Lawrence puts on a fat suit and goes undercover again, this time as caretaker
to three rich kids. Nothing brilliant here, but it's no worse than the original
Momma and funnier than either
recent Martin Lawrence comedies or the sorry batch of last year’s family
comedies.
The nice thing about the two Momma
movies are that you don’t really see much of their star, Martin Lawrence. If
you’re a fan of movies like National Security and Black Knight,
you probably want to discount this review. I’m not, but Martin is a
pretty good mimic. For this sequel, he once again dons a fat suit to solve a
crime undercover. In this case Momma finagles a job as nanny to three children
of neglectful parents. Thus the hallmarks of Martin’s usual comic persona,
race-baiting and misogyny, are, if not absent, then subdued. Certainly,
watching an elderly woman attempt to contain her lust for half-dressed woman is
funnier than watching Martin openly leer at them. Calling it subtle would be
going much too far. After all, the movie’s centerpiece is an on-the-beach chase
scene meant to highlight the realistic rolls of fat enveloping Martin’s legs.
Surely, the Academy cannot snub the make-up and effects artists again. Momma
2 has the same setup as The Pacifier, which isn’t a good thing, but
there’s less toilet humor, and at least Martin/Momma doesn’t make the kids go
through military drills like Vin Diesel (or Dennis Quaid in Yours Mine and
Ours). Each of the kids has a problem. The youngest, for example, doesn’t
speak and likes to take flying leaps from high places. (This last part garnered
some of the louder laughs from the large audience I saw this with.) The oldest
is a surly clone of the teenage girl from The Pacifier. Naturally, Momma
has fixed the kids, taught the parents a lesson or two, and (spoiler alert!) solved the crime by the time he returns to his own
family, whom he’s been lying to. Now if only Momma could straighten Martin out.
posted 9/17/13
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