Film Review - Why Did I Get Married Too?
April 02, 2010
For his ninth feature film, writer/director Tyler Perry has returned to the source of his most inspired work. “Why Did I Get Married Too?” is a sequel to the 2007 domestic disturbance ensemble piece, reuniting all of the original cast to once again delve into the flood waters of marriage, trust, and infidelity. The original film wasn’t an astounding emotional investigation, but it permitted Perry a chance to work on a script concerning adults, without the pinching shackles of the demonic Madea character or his feckless stabs at religious enlightenment. “Married Too” continues the coarse matrimonial adventure, only now the childish rage and jarring tomfoolery has moved to the Bahamas, allowing the earsplitting melodrama a chance to grab a tan.
Continuing their annual get-togethers, couples Diane (Sharon Leal) and Terry (Tyler Perry), Patricia (Janet Jackson) and Gavin (Malik Yoba), Marcus (Michael Jai White) and Angela (Tasha Smith), and Shelia (Jill Scott) and Troy (Lamann Rucker), have gathered in the Bahamas for a week of fun in the sun. Much like their previous encounters, tempers flare when the couples have a chance to share their bedroom woes and gender role fears, with added trouble arriving in the form of Mike (Richard T. Jones), Shelia’s abusive ex-husband, who’s come to enjoy a vacation. Returning home after a stormy week of wicked introspection and arguments, the couples are faced with new decisions to make, contemplating divorce or worse after this friendly gathering reveals ghastly secrets and desires.
Actually, the tropical playground only takes up a third of “Married Too,” serving as a change of locale to launch the sequel with a few fresh steps. The effect only lasts mere seconds before the film snuggles up to the same old Perry business, only the sequel feels the vile urge to up the ante thousandfold in the hysteria department. If there are two forces in filmdom that should be kept as far away from each other as possible, it has to be hysterics and Tyler Perry.
It’s actually fairly shocking to watch “Married Too” tear into itself so swiftly, steamrolling across the screen with a head-rattling shrillness that doesn’t mesh at all with the original picture. To Perry, this franchise is now professional wrestling, with heroes to cheer and villains to boo, taking whatever minuscule dimension of characterization there was to nuzzle in 2007 and reducing it to a merciless clenched fist that strikes the viewer over and over in all the sweet spots. “Married Too” is a cinematic act of cruelty, and I’m curious to understand why Perry decided to amplify the viciousness to apocalyptic levels, where the first picture made due (and money) with a softer, more controlled tone of distress. Sequels generally quest to outdo their screen forefathers, but this feature is absolutely preposterous in the manner it plays to the rafters. Heck, even past the rafters at times.
Even the audience at the midnight screening I attended (Perry doesn’t like film critics to sniff around his movies early) found themselves laughing at, not with, the wailing absurdity. Perhaps the filmmaker has finally lost touch with his loyal audience.
Staged for the camera like one of Perry’s plays, “Married Too” is unforgivably stiff, with clumsy cinematography that makes the picture feel rigid and synthetic. The dialogue appears largely improvised as well, with actors often talking over each other, thus creating more unwelcome noise. This is an unconvincing ensemble, but I don’t place the blame for this film squarely on their shoulders. After all, it’s Perry’s vision, and he wants the vein-poppin’, staggering-around-with-a-bottle-of-booze, overly reptilian stuff here. The performances are uniformly dreadful, but there’s a special migraine grip from Tasha Smith, who positively terrorizes this film as hyper-jealous shebeast Angela. She’s a rampaging velociraptor, bleeding gunshot wound, and Ke$ha song all rolled up into a 100-pound African-American nightmare, and every last screen moment with her screeching self is death. Pure death. There’s nothing funny about the performance, though Perry seems amused, encouraging Smith to squeal until hoarse and stomp until bruised.
Smith’s agonizing performance plays into a larger concept of sympathy that Perry bungles immediately. Are we supposed to feel for these characters and their failed marriages or do we revel in their petty jealousy, rampant stupidity, and overall inhumanity as some type of sport? Perry doesn’t have a single insightful thing to say about the state of marriage in the United States, instead erecting the film as a gladiatorial arena, pitting men versus women in a battle royal of unnecessary contempt. Perry doesn’t take the dramatic challenge of relationship despair seriously, and this sequel is all too quick to exploit some very real emotions to rile up the crowds with wild displays of implausible numbskullery. “Married Too” isn’t about the heart, it’s about rabid behavior to whoop over.
And if you think the film couldn’t get any worse than 105 minutes of lunatic soap opera turns, actors chewing the frame, and Perry turning marriage into an act of sustained emotional violence, he goes completely spineless in the final 15 minutes, ushering in cancer and a car accident to rush his film to a close, barely capping any of the subplots off in the process. It’s downright shameless, assisted by a Perry first: a surprise celebrity cameo, helping to swallow this alarmingly bitter pill.
Cancer. Good lord. Talk about an unabashed, intensely distasteful screenplay cheat.
I’ve sat through every single Tyler Perry film hoping for something that reveals promise or spotlights creative growth, and I thought the original “Why Did I Get Married?” was a interesting peek into the filmmaker’s potential future away from the prison of Madea. I was wrong. “Why Did I Get Married Too?” is actually Perry’s most obscenely obnoxious, morally bankrupt, and professionally ramshackle film to date. It’s appalling in every way, showing a disregard for humankind in a manner that should keep Perry on a therapist’s couch, not on a film set.
F
My comment never needs to appear on your site, but just to let you know you are the one out of touch with reality. This movie was AWESOME. Movies do not need to be filled with a bunch of fiction to be enjoyable. You wished you had the talent in your whole body that Tyler Perry has in his one finger. So to you and your stupid remarks, the movie was a success regardless of how you may try to downgrade it.
Posted by: AMcQueen | April 03, 2010 at 01:08 PM
Comments are moderated - well far from fair and unless they agree on your ideas my comments might not even be posted. I like his movies there about real life and what real people go though everiday. And to put some hummor in it with a little thinking after the fact it great stuff. Good work yet again I own a large R&B hip hop night club and was down 15% capacity becasue people are out to see it opeing friday. Make more grea movies and make more $
DJROnC
Posted by: ROnC | April 03, 2010 at 06:14 PM
I must agree wholeheartedly with the reviewer. I departed the theatre extremely disappointed and disheartened.
Posted by: GRL | April 03, 2010 at 07:40 PM
You are a GREAT writer and I agree with every.single.word. I said much of the same in my own critique.
What bothers me most is the people defending this tripe. AA's we MUST do better!
Posted by: TamG | April 04, 2010 at 10:49 AM
OK - The movie WAS typical Tyler Perry fare. But your review actually reveals more about your own personal prejudices (no I'm not talking racial) than the film's actual shortcomings. With copy like this, no wonder movie critics have become so irrelevant to consumers.
Posted by: watkino | April 04, 2010 at 05:58 PM
i agree 100%. i have no idea why movie goers continue to defend this mess. we all know what tyler perry is about but this downward spiral of drama to the 43rd power is upsetting.
very little in this movie is realistic. sure people have cancer and yes infidelity is a common problem in the U.S. but a squirrel couldn't catch a break in this movie. drama after drama after drama transpires in about 30 minutes.
it is not refreshing or entertaining. i simply wish he would stop these types of movies. well i guess he doesn't have too. i already decided to never see any more of his original material
and say what you want but Perfect Patty has no talent for acting. Janet needs to pick either music or acting and i pray she chooses the latter
Posted by: tired steve | April 05, 2010 at 04:06 AM
Awesome review! I have to tell you when I hear another Tyler Perry movie is coming out I always look forward to your review :) I am so glad someone else can see through this smoke screen!
I went to see the first "Why did I Get Married" because of what you wrote and my hope that it could be the one Perry film that I could sit through, and totally agreed with you. I had high hopes that this one would be even better (and maybe show a little growth from Mr. Perry)...unfortunately not.
Don't listen to the haters, you are right on with this review. Maybe Perry'll call his next one "Why can't I get one right?"
Posted by: Nat | April 05, 2010 at 07:54 AM
Yo, I heard Tyler Perry is allegedly gay. How he go around preaching Jesus when our God would burn his ass in hell for his sins?
I can't believe this man still has fans. Church folk too. Yo, that's crazy.
Posted by: Jamal Roberts | April 05, 2010 at 06:28 PM
This movie was AWFUL. I've never seen a filmmaker hate marriage as much as Tyler Perry. Why do my bothers and sisters insist on giving this fool their money?
And this writer is right about Tasha Smith. I wanted to put my fist in her big ass mouth during the entire movie. Nothing funny about her. She's a horrible actress.
Posted by: Tamala Willets | April 05, 2010 at 07:44 PM
Perry's films are simplistic and patronizing. It aims at it core audience, working african america women, and tells them much like the black church does, that you can be rich or happy but not both. But I'm a professional african caribbean woman and what plays out in this film is far from my heterosexual, professional, upper-class african caribbean reality.
Posted by: jak | April 05, 2010 at 10:04 PM
I think this has nothing to do with the movie and a lot more to do with the prejudices you all have against Mr. Perry yourself. If you don't like his material stop waisting your money because there will always be a full house when it comes to his movies..If any of you are black and wrote a nasty comment about Mr. Perry then you of all people should know it has nothing to do w/what you "thought" of the movie but more of the way you should support this black man in making it in America...I myself had times in the movie where some of it could've been left out but as long as Mr. Perry does right by his fans I will forever and always support him 100% and I know millions more will to
Posted by: SoFlawless01 | April 05, 2010 at 11:07 PM
Your review is spot on. I hated this movie, especially the incessant yelling of Tasha Smith's character (talk about verbal abuse), the unecessary use of the word "okay" after every sentence in which the character is supposed to show emotion, and the dumb plot twists.
As usual, Tyler Perry tried to do too much, instead of editing himself and producing a fuller, more developed film. Like with the first "Why Did I Get Married" movie, the characters encounter very serious issues, but never deal with them in any meaningful way. The hospital scene where everyone hugs and makes up was ridiculous, as were the irrelevant cameo appearances of Cicely Tyson and Lou Gossett Jr.
Someone please pull this man aside and teach him something about character and plot development.
Critics always say that Tyler Perry's audience is African-American women but, IMO, race isn't the key factor. Yes, Tyler Perry makes movies geared towards African-Americans, but it's commonality of life experiences that separate African-American women who like his work and those who do not.
The women that I know who like Tyer Perry's films have the following things in common beyond their race. They were all raised in lower class single-parent households by mothers with little education. They all had little or no relationship with their fathers or other strong male role models. Their mothers tended to have abusive and/or dysfunctional relationships with men. As a result, these women, no matter how educated they are, have no sense of what healthy male-female relationships look like or how they work. So, films like "Why Did I Get Married?" and "Why Did I Get Married Too?" strike a chord with them because they are constantly trying to find out what it's supposed to look like.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every woman with this life experience will relate to Tyler Perry's movies. I'm just saying that, in my experience, this seems to be the trend.
Posted by: BJ | April 11, 2010 at 10:23 AM
At least this movie had a happy ending. After Patricia (Jackson) makes a fool of herself and potentially endangers her husband's career, he (almost appropriately) over-reacts and dies in a car accident. But at least she avoids the stigma of divorce on her reputation, gets to keep the house (the living room can be repaired), and doesn't have to share the $800K book earnings. PLUS, she meets Mr. Wonderful in anticipation of "Why Did I Get RE-Married"! I bet she turns out like Angela, except she can't shriek like that, which would ruin it. (And why would Marcus have his rendezvous at his house again AFTER Angela confronted him? STUPID!!) What a waste of time and film. Madea should whup Tyler's ass.
Posted by: R H Lancaster | October 24, 2010 at 09:35 PM