There are many bad film franchises out there, but few hold a candle to the absolute disgrace of the Big Momma's House movies. For those fortunate enough to not know, BMH is a series about a cop played by Martin Lawrence who goes undercover as an elderly fat woman to get to the bottom of various crimes. Now, this premise doesn't sound completely awful on paper. If they were just some dumb family films, I might be more forgiving. But these movies are ADULT comedies, so you know there's gonna be a lot of immature sex humor in them because that type of humor worked in a few really good comedies in the past, so it MUST work in every movie, right? But that kind of humor isn't what ruins these movies for me. What ruins them for me is that these films present the crimes in question like Law and Order rather than a zany comedy. Not every police scene is serious, but 9 times out of 10, the police characters act like they are in a totally different movie about serious police work. And there lies the problem: What are all these professional officers doing in a movie about a guy dressing up as a quirky old lady? And furthermore, why does the main character, who is supposed to take these life or death scenarios seriously, act like a horny teenager every time a hot woman is in his vicinity? The first movie is literally just two different smaller movies fighting for control of one film and neither one is particularly good. The clash of these tones really drives me up the wall.
And it'd be one thing if these films actually had some funny jokes, but they never do. It's is either the main character being perverted, unfunny slapstick, or cringey sex and/or bathroom joke. I'm not saying this premise lends itself to a lot of amazing possibilities, but you'd think SOMEONE in the writing staff would've tried harder than this. I miss a lot of things from the 2000s, but this franchise is not one of them. I hope to god Martin Lawrence doesn't make more of these movies. The world sucks enough now these days. We don't need to add gasoline to the sucky fire.