Big Mommas Like Father Like Son

Quite how this flaccid, one-joke crime-comedy franchise even got off the ground is a mystery. Yet here we are again – 11 years after the first – with a third clumsy scenario. Martin Lawrence again plays the FBI agent who goes undercover dressed up as a big-assed, take-no-shit soul mother. But the joke this time also involves his rap-star-wannabe son Trent (Brandon T Jackson) dragging up and tagging along on a case involving a trio of gun-toting hoods and a mysterious USB stick hidden inside a drama school for girls. Having enrolled in one the school’s courses, Trent masquerades as Big Momma’s niece, befriends music student Haley (Jessica Lucas) and falls for her. At which juncture the film slips into a retread of ‘Tootsie’. Couldn’t the writers have come up with something less contrived and a little funnier? And if you’re going to have someone dress up as a clichéd southern blues matriarch, at least have the decency to keep it plausible. There is one decent scene – a ‘Fame’-like singsong – but that’s about it.