"Good Deeds" Gone BAD

~Elle Shanice~ Grade: B-

You know how people say that Tyler Perry makes the same movies over and over? Well I'm starting to believe that is true.

I wasn't really excited to see his latest movie, Good Deeds because I felt that I already knew what would happen: Tyler Perry's character would fall in love with this other woman and his fiance' would get mad. That's pretty much what happened.

I see that Tyler Perry is trying some different things and I have to give him credit because he is the biggest name in black cinema. However, I felt that the movie was trying too hard to tell such a simple story of Wesley Deeds, a man who does not live his own life but the life that he was raised to live.

He has the perfect fiance' Natalie (played by Gabrielle Union) and the perfect job (CEO of his late father's company) but he is not happy inside. He does not realize this, of course, until he meets Lindsey (played by Thandie Newton). She is a free-spirited janitor in Deeds' building who has to hide her 6-year-old daughter in the closet while she works because they are homeless and living out of her car. It was cool to see them get to know each other and for her to help him get in touch with his reality but it a plot that was drawn out for too long.

First of all, the movie opens up with a Tyler Perry shower scene (Ewwwww!!!!!) with this dramatic monotoned monologue that showed his tendency to OVER act. Secondly, I'm not nor have I ever been a fan of Gabrielle Union which made the movie hard to watch for me as well. I can't explain my disdain for her but just know that I don't really like her, although I don't know her personally. All of that made for a VERY awkward sex scene between the two of them...SMH

The best part of the movie to me was the tension between Deeds and his alcoholic, bad-tempered brother Walter (OVER played by Brian White). It was funny to see the two go back and forth as the younger brother was jealous that Wesley was running the company.

Despite how I feel about it, the movie did pretty good over the weekend, earning $16 million and opening at #2 in the box office. That means that people went to see the movie and we know Tyler Perry can fill the movie chairs.