VividSimon Simply Perfect

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

legofan~ I may be in the minority, but I'm not the hugest fan of Tyler Perry's titles. Although I do respect him as a director and his growth over the years, I just can't stand this movie. I grew up with this one, and watched it several times on DVD with my parents, however I couldn't get passed the stereotypical African-Americans setups and the low-brow humour. My main criticism with this film is the typical low-brow humour you would expect from a film aiming at Afro-American entertainment, and the setups. While some films very naturally grab the attention of a viewer through culture shock, the majority of the humour in this feels forced. It almost feels like they're desperately trying to get laughs from an African-American audience, but me as partially Afro, I just can't feel anything. The humour wasn't offensively bad, it was just low-brow and I just can't understand the appeal of this film. Even the title itself implies a forced, pandering feel to it. Normally, culture shock films can have subjective titles, although for some reason, the title in this one feels like it's trying to pander to an African-American audience. You can grab the attention of a certain group without forcing it on them.Overall, there is nothing good or even comical to expect from this film, it's a fest full of stereotypes, somewhat mean-spirited and mixed messages, pandering and forced attempts at appealing to an African-American audience, abysmal narrative, and overall a bad movie inside/out. No matter which way I look at it, I just can't get past these typical setups and pander towards African-American audiences.Final rating: 3.2/10 (Bad)This is just my opinion, you may judge for yourself~legofan~

Gideon24 One of Tyler Perry's earliest big screen offerings was 2005's Diary of a Mad Black Woman, a glossy, yet empty comedy/drama/romance that suffers from a somewhat muddled screenplay and some unappealing characters (including Perry's most famous creation, Medea).The film stars Kimberly Elise as Helen, the pampered wife of a sexist mob lawyer named Charles (Steve Harris) who finds her comfortable existence shattered when her husband announces that he is in love with another woman and unceremoniously throws her out of the house with nothing but the clothes on her back. She then moves in with her grandmother Medea and while trying to learn how to live her life as an independent woman, attempts to start a relationship with a regular guy named Orlando (Shemar Moore), who cannot provide the life her husband did, but treats her like a queen, but she is so damaged by what her husband did to her, she keeps pushing Orlando away. Things become even more complicated when Charles' work gets him seriously hurt and Helen finds herself compelled to be the man's caregiver.This film pretty much aggravates the viewer throughout because the central character is kind of all over the place...it's a mystery why she stayed married to Charles as long as she did, not to mention her ignorance about his work or why even after cheating on her and throwing her out, she still seems to have feelings for him. It's aggravating as we watch Orlando makes all the right moves with Helen and being kept at arm's length and it's also aggravating watching Helen getting lots of bad advice from Medea on how to move on with her life. The scene where Medea enters Charles' house and starts sawing the furniture in half is just ridiculous.Kimberly Elise works very hard at making Helen likable but she is fighting the screenplay all the way and Perry's arrogant casting of himself as not only Madea, but Helen's cousin Brian AND Medea's husband Joe is pretty hard to take as well. Moore's role as Orlando is pretty thankless, but he looks good while he's doing it. Harris is extremely effective as Charles though, completely investing in one of the most despicable characters I have ever seen in a movie. The movie might have worked a lot better if it was a little clearer what point Perry is trying to make here, as his central character is a lot more stupid than she is "mad.

Benjamin Black Obviously you can tell by my other reviews that I am a huge Tyler Perry fan. So naturally when my family and I heard that he was making a movie in 2005, we got really excited and went to see it in theaters opening weekend. What did I think of it? It was a great film, and it still is! I love movies and TV shows that are just as good, if not better, than the first time you saw it. This movie is just fantastic! Tyler Perry did an absolutely great job updating this story and transposing it over to film. I love seeing Charles at work; it showed more of his human side. When he's not mean and evil of Helena, he's at work being a good lawyer. I like the side story with Brian and Deborah. I love that Orlando isn't rich in this version! I love the message of forgiveness! I just love this movie! It's funny, it's dramatic, it's musical, it's inspiring! I love it! It's one of my favorite movies.So let's talk about why some people don't necessarily like this movie. I read one review on this website in which the writer stated he or she couldn't understand what this movie is supposed to be: is it a romance, a drama, a comedy? Well, it's life. Again, the strength in Tyler Perry's writing is the realism of the story and characters. Life is funny, life is serious. In life we meet our soul mates and experience romance. This movie is just an imitation of life.It's also really good to see Madea on the big screen! A lot of people got excited for this, but this may also be what some people don't like about the film. Some of you might be surprised to learn that a lot of people don't like Madea. ("WHAAAAAT?!? Madea is unliked?! How is that possible?" I know, just hold on.) One reason this might be is because we've never seen a character like Madea in mainstream entertainment before. We've seen the loving grandparent, the wise grandparent, and the unkind grandparent hundreds of times. We've never seen a grandparent like Madea in movies before, and people will always react differently to something new. You'll have your lovers and your haters alike.I think it's interesting because we all know someone like Madea. Whether it's a man or a woman, a grandparent or a friend, we know someone like Madea. So then, why do people have a problem with a character this real? I don't know, and maybe I'll never know or understand. Regardless, however, this movie is absolutely fantastic! I think you'll enjoy it! BOOYIKA!

Steve Pulaski Diary of a Mad Black Woman's immediate problem is that it tries so hard to assemble movie themes and ideas taken from all over the grid that the end result feels like each act was snatched from several different screenplays. The inclusion of the infamous grandmother, Madea, played in drag by Tyler Perry, is one of the film's prominent complaints. While occasionally giving us a goofball laugh, she disrupts the emotional sympathy the film wants to provide its audience with, and her brash, unapologetic crudeness, at times, becomes strictly unbearable.We are met with Helen (Elise), who on the eve of her eighteen year of marriage, is thrown out of the house by her husband Charles (Harris) who reveals that he has been cheating on her with his mistress and has two children with her. Charles throws her in the presence of Orlando (Moore), a well-meaning man who will drive her to where she wants, but she quickly throws him out of his own car to head over to her grandmother's house. Helen's grandmother is Madea (Perry), whose first response to everything bad is pulling out a gun and threatening to fire shots or unjustly doing so. She lives with her brother Joe (Perry, again), who seems to have picked up on her manner of ignorance and foulness and agree with it shamelessly.Helen is struggling to get her life back on track, but winds up spending time with Orlando, and realizes that all men might not be so bad. Meanwhile, it is inevitable something very unfortunate will happen to Charles in perhaps a form of karmic revenge, leaving the door open for Helen to take action.Tyler Perry is definitely located at the lower-end of the black filmmaker ladder. Rather than choosing to breed life into seemingly vacuous areas like the works of Spike Lee or the underrated John Singleton, Perry is more concerned with stereotyping and the uneven blend of sentiment and slapstick. There are times in Diary, where we have completely forgotten this psycho, gun-toting grandma even exists until she is forced back on screen in an attempt to squeeze some laughs out of a picture that doesn't call for any.But the biggest flaw with the picture is the lack of cohesion within the narrative. It tries to accomplish too many things, and winds up combining them into a messy, disorganized piece that is tonally choppy and melodramatically basic. To name of all the things it wants to accomplish, it wants to be a slapstick comedy with two characters in unconvincing and unnecessary drag, have a depressing yet somewhat uninteresting divorce setup between a couple we can't really believe held it out for eighteen long years, get a new romance off to a start, have a devout continuous Christian agenda applied in a heavy-handed and sometimes cloying manner like a Television movie for TBN, include a virtually unbelievable, far-fetched tale of drug life, and finally, is mixed with the depth and originality of a barren, repeated soap opera fit for the daytime lineup on NBC. But because the film is so indecisive and distracted, it can't pull off any of its goals to their full potential.And then again, maybe I'm missing the point. Perry's plays have garnered overnight fame, as well as his name being associated with sentimental and relatable qualities (quite possibly a major part in their success), if occasional silliness. Unfortunately, Diary of a Mad Black Woman is overlong, plagued by potentially emotional scenes utterly drained when punctuated by scenes of the limitless grandmother, and resembles all too neatly how calamity can be turned into grand opportunity.Starring: Kimberly Elise, Tyler Perry, Steve Harris, Shemar Moore, Tamara Taylor, Tiffany Evans, and Cicely Tyson. Directed by: Darren Grant.