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Review by Susan Granger
2 stars out of 4
If you're a die-hard Martin Lawrence fan, you'll appreciate
this movie. If not, forget it. Lawrence plays FBI agent Malcolm
Turner, who has built a reputation as a master of disguises. When he's
sent to a small town in Georgia to capture a bank robber who's escaped
from prison, he sets up a stakeout near the home of the con's
girl-friend's long-lost grandmother (Ella Mitchell), an old woman
known as Big Momma. Only Big Momma's not around. So Turner decides to
go deep undercover and impersonate the hefty Southern matriarch,
including cooking soul food, singing gospel, even delivering
babies. The result is an outrageous romantic farce because,
predictably, Turner experiences an emotional transformation, falls for
the girl-friend, a single mother played by lovely Nia Long ("Boiler
Room"), befriends her son and struts on the basketball court: "Grandma
knows she's got game!" Of course, when the real Big Momma surfaces, a
stunned onlooker chirps, "Are you the Doublemint twins?" The
screenplay by Darryl Quarles and Don Rhymer, based on a story by
Quarles, serves primarily as a vehicle for Martin Lawrence's riff on
Eddie Murphy's "Nutty Professor" concept of playing several different
characters. And if it looks derivative, perhaps it's because director
Raja Gosnell served as editor on "Mrs. Doubtfire," while Big Momma's
make-up and prosthetics are the work of "Mrs. Doubtfire" Oscar-winner,
Greg Cannom. Cannom's also responsible for transforming Lawrence into
an Asian man for the opening sequence in which Turner busts an illegal
dog fighting ring. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Big Momma's
House" is a sporadically funny 5 - and, yes, the fat lady sings!
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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out of 4
