Madea Goes to Jail

I said it before...Let's show respect for each other. We can share our opinions without belittling and insulting one another. In his movies and plays, Tyler brings a lot of serious issues to our attention, and he uses the characters to help a lot of people deal with those issues. Now that we are increasing awareness rather than continuing to hide these issues, it's time to do something about them. Don't support Tyler Perry only to be entertained by Madea, Brown, or other characters, or to critique their work. Personally, I wasn't entertained by MGTJ. However, I did leave the theatre with an increased awareness of a very serious issue in our society. There's always a message, worth hearing, in Tyler's work.

If you like APF's (audience participation films), this is the movie for you, and by all means see MGTJ at the theatre. You'll enjoy the commentary, hysterical laughter in anticipation of the punch lines, ab-libbing, etc. Otherwsie, I recommend viewing on cable or satellite - with an open mind. See the bigger picture and ask yourself, "Does this film present issues that I can do something about?" Your commitment doesn't have to be large-scale. Maybe you resolve to challenge your old views.

If you don't like MGTJ, or you don't respect TP as a film maker. Make a better film addressing these issues and calling people to action.

Blessings, ~VP

This narrative can't make it's mind up. The director (who also writes it) gets confused between whether he has written a comedy, or a melodrama.

The scenes containing what we believe to be the main protagonist 'Madea' are an attempt at comedy that rely on spectacle and stereotype. The gags aren't executed very well at all (yet you can't blame the actors and actresses with this script) and I get the feeling that this has all been done before, recently in fact and better I might add.

Scenes containing Candi are melodramatic and actually not that bad. There is some good acting and the plot is well contrived. Some of these scenes question American class division and have a purpose.

So, bring these two elements together and you get a confused audience. The two stories have no relevance to each other until the end of the film when they 'collide'. I use collide loosely because this doesn't even happen. The characters meet and nothing much happens. I think they spoke together in about three shots.

The story itself lets the director down as well. It's easy to second guess (yet you wish you'd be proved wrong) and you wonder whether you are watching two different movies playing at once. The character of Madea is badly constructed. There is no development what-so-ever. Without giving too much away; Madea's involvement in the ending is complete nonsense. People who have seen this film will probably agree that she has no real reason to be there.

To sum up, this is the worst film I have seen in years. The director should have picked one of the stories instead of merging them in some sort of Nutty Professor meets Pretty Woman side show. Utterly ridiculous.

I hadn't seen any of Tyler Perry's films before this one because I don't find drag comedy appealing. I didn't expect this to be a great film, but it was much worse than I could have imagined. The main reason is Madea herself. Madea is a rude, hostile, Ghetto cliché of a woman who as the opening credits demonstrated, has spent most of her adult life in and out of jail for various offenses caused by her inability to control her anger and need for revenge. After one particular incident the elderly behemoth must finally endure the consequences and serve time. Although this did not happen until about one hour into the film, I applauded because Madea is clueless to how bad her behavior is that even a trained professional like Dr. Phil couldn't get through to her. She needed to learn that she is not above the law as a sort of comeuppance.

Another reason this film was so bad was that it would frequently shift to a secondary storyline which had nothing to do with Madea. It was something of a "Pretty Woman" premise involving a legal clerk trying to rescue a childhood friend from drugs and prostitution. Every time this happened, it was like somebody getting a remote control and changing the channel. The ending does show a common thread for these story lines but it's not enough to save this train wreck of a film.

After watching Madea, I can't understand why people enjoy Tyler Perry films so much. The Ghetto factor may be the main reason people line up and pay good money to see this garbage. If that's the case, it's very sad that this is what 21st century America considers entertainment. I would have given this a minus rating if IMDb allowed it.

I'll keep this short and sweet. It's not Avatar, and it wasn't over produced! It's funny and has a great plot. Here is some advice, get a sense of humor. Not every movie has to be 10/10 to be good. Giving a movie like this anything less than a "5/10!" Is absurd! Quit getting mad just because this movie promotes religion and happiness. Go watch a really Hollywood movie and hop on their bandwagon! This is a real movie, from real people, from real life! These characters take me back to my childhood. Hard times and hard struggles and how in the end, God works things out! I bet half of you people reviewing this movie just hate the religious message! That's all!

I scratched my head through most of this movie and remain quite bewildered by it now that I've seen the whole thing. What's with the title? Madea (one of those man playing a woman characters) is really only about half of the movie, the half that deals with Madea is silly at best and irritating at worst, and she only goes to jail for about the last 20 minutes. So what's with "Madea Goes To Jail" as if that's the focal point of the story?

The real meat of the story revolves around the relationship between Joshua (Derek Luke) and Candi (Keshia Knight Pulliam.) Joshua is a DA who rose from the wrong side of the tracks and is now engaged to Linda (Ion Overman) - another DA and something of a "princess" - as she's repeatedly called. Candi, meanwhile, is a prostitute who grew up with Joshua and who reconnects with him. Joshua has a need to help her out of her situation. Something happened between the two years ago that makes Joshua feel responsible for Candi, but it takes a while for that to come out. This story is the "meat" of the movie, far more central than the Madea storyline, and not really related to it in any meaningful way. The Candi story is a heavy one: prostitution, drugs, jail, rape. For a comedy this is actually pretty dark most of the way through. Madea, I guess, is supposed to provide the comedy, but aside from a handful of scenes doesn't really accomplish that. There's a bizarre focus on religion throughout this, highlighted by a decent enough turn by Viola Davis as an unorthodox minister reaching out to the local streetwalkers. Even Dr. Phil appears in this. The exchange between him and Madea was cute for a while, but got tired very fast, and why it was deemed necessary to have yet another portrayal of a Madea/Dr. Phil session run during the closing credits is one of those mysteries no one will ever be able to explain.

If this had just focused on the Joshua/Candi story it would have made for some pretty good material and a pretty powerful movie. Unfortunately, the nonsense surrounding the Madea material drags everything else about this movie down. This is basically a poorly put together and overall unappealing movie. (3/10)