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(Because of course behind every closed door in Alabama is a full-dress Klan meeting.) Madea exits, there is a sparkling holiday-themed transitional wipe across the screen and that’s the end of it.
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At one point Madea is directed to a small building for a roadside bathroom break and finds a roomful of people in the robes and hoods of the Klu Klux Klan. Perry’s scratchpad variety-show attitude toward storytelling means that even when he lands on an interesting idea he just as quickly leaves it. For good measure there is a brief cameo by Antoine Dodson, he of “hide your kids, hide your wife” viral notoriety and listed in the credits as “YouTube Guy.” The cast is rounded out by Alicia Witt, Chad Michael Murray and former “Facts of Life” star Lisa Whelchel. With the arrival of his parents (played by Kathy Najimy and a briefly, boldly shirtless Larry the Cable Guy), a hasty subterfuge brings out long-simmering prejudices from Eileen. In the film, which was not screened in advance for critics, Perry’s Madea is traveling with her adult niece, Eileen (Anna Maria Horsford), from Atlanta to rural Alabama for a surprise Christmas visit with Eileen’s daughter, Lacey (Tika Sumpter), who has secretly gotten married to Conner (Eric Lively, Blake’s brother). PHOTOS: Scenes from ‘The Best Man Holiday’ A Madea Christmas is the eighth film featuring the titular behemoth, though it feels like the hundredth, with Perry serving up the same stale brew of. Blige and “True Blood” actor Joe Manganiello can’t get into a Ritz Carlton or a Motel 6 and so have their baby on the street thanks to a mangy talking dog. That being said, a high point is Madea’s garbled riff on the Nativity story to a group of schoolkids - in her version singer Mary J. What’s most odd about the film is how not Christmas-y it often is, as if Perry was bringing together a patchwork of ideas under the cover of a holiday story rather than crafting one from whole cloth. Perry can now knock these films out in his sleep, and with “Madea Christmas” he certainly seems to be dozing at the wheel. Here he is refreshingly lighter with his typically heavy-handed moral lessons, which also makes the film feel even flimsier than some other Madea outings. An adaptation of his own stage play, “Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas” winds up the same slapdash, lightweight effort as Madea in any other season, with a few Yuletide flourishes.Īs usual, Perry has created a casual mix of easy comedy with a touch of dramatic filigree. As pop singers eventually make holiday albums, it was bound to happen that Tyler Perry would bring his cornerstone character of Madea to Christmas sooner or later.