Susan Granger’s review of “Big Momma’s House 2” (20th Century-Fox)
When a comedy isn’t funny, it’s pathetic, and when it recycles an over-used fat suit, it’s gross.
Manic comedian Martin Lawrence is back as Malcolm Turner, the FBI agent who goes undercover as sassy, plus-sized grandmother, Hattie Mae Pierce. This time, he’s in Orange County, California, posing as a nanny in order to work his way into the home of a suspicious tech company executive, Tom Fuller (Mark Moses), who is suspected of designing a deadly computer worm that could, potentially, compromise government secrets, and his over-organized, high-strung wife (Emily Procter). Of course, he has no idea how to care for their three neglected children, ages toddler through teen, and his obvious ineptitude at simple household tasks is played for laughs, as are his visits to a fancy spa and to the beach, where zaftig Big Momma, clad in a canary-yellow bathing suit and blonde cornrows, cavorts in slow motion, like Bo Derek in “10.”
Under the direction of John Whitesell (“Malibu’s Most Wanted”), Martin Lawrence seems to be going through his paces as a clowning caricature, rather than a character, along with Nia Long, as his very pregnant wife. Of course, the lame, formulaic plot, lifted from “Mrs. Doubtfire” by screenwriter Don Rhymer, offers them little to work with except a tequila-guzzling Chihuahua and cheesy, sentimental solutions for a dysfunctional family. And if Mark Moses looks familiar, you’ve seen him as Paul Young on “Desperate Housewives.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Big Momma’s House 2” is an embarrassing, one-joke 1. It’s a dreadful debacle, made worse by Lawrence’s promise/threat, “Keep a lookout. You never know when Big Momma might be back.”
