Peeples Movie Review
Feeble.
Whenever there is a huge whale of a movie debut like Ironman 3 it tends to scare all the smaller fish out of the proverbial pond, leaving all us hardworking reviewers with next to nothing to feed on except the occasional minnow like Peeples (or, as it should have been called, Meet the Parents with Black People). Odds are on a regular week this one would have slipped my notice entirely but as it is one of the few things I can jump on I guess I am stuck with it (if you think this is stretching wait until you see what I have lined up for tomorrow).
So this movie was kind of lame. I am actually a big fan of Craig Robinson from the Office and hoped this was going to work. 
However this Little Engine that Could was fueled entirely by mangled cliche’s and a weird new uncanny valley of situations ridiculous enough to be annoying but not ridiculous enough to actually be funny (Little Train image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirts category). I don’t want to jump down too hard on this film mainly because it appears to be the directors first debut and I hate squishing potential. After all, when I first started excreting waste I did it willy nilly and needed to wear a diaper all the time and in the last couple years have almost completely shifted to using a toilet. Life is an evolutionary process and we are all better today than we were yesterday.
Potential aside, the director has written a couple of movies that don’t exactly imply a future Scorsese (one about a roller rink, one about drums) but you never know.
I won’t say this movie was entirely without merit. Like I said I enjoy Craig Robinson and he had his funny moments in this film, as did David Alan Grier and Malcolm Barrett. The entire cast did a decent job with the acting. Dialog wasn’t horrible. The chemistry between Craig and David was actually quite fun up until the last 10 minutes. The problem is the good elements fail to outweigh the bad.
This is one of those special films that had I been wearing a foam dome full of Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon (Norways finest 16% beer) I probably would have been laughing my ass off and enjoyed it a lot. Once you disconnect the higher brain functions your stem is fully capable of forgetting how every joke you are seeing has been done elsewhere ad infinitum. Once again I am cursed with a brain (or so I think. If I am way stupider than I believe myself to be let me thank all of you for not bursting my fantasy bubble).
The story. It can easily be summed up with two questions:
1. Have you seen Meet the Parents?
2. Can you mentally substitute black actors for all the white ones is that movie?
If you can answer yes to both feel free to skip ahead four paragraphs to the stars and black holes. For those of you who cannot it tells the story of Wade Walker (Craig Robinson-the Office, Hot Tub Time Machine, Pineapple Express) and his super hot girlfriend Grace Peeples (Kerry Washington-Django Unchained, Last King of Scotland, Ray) (by the way, we can thank Kevin James for the whole super hot girl/fat loser guy Hollywood relationship dynamic. I still want to transfer to the dimension where that is a reality). She is a successful lawyer and he sings urine songs at children’s parties. She is headed back to her home of Sag Harbor for the annual Moby Dick Day (Sag Harber is apparently the town mentioned several times in the book Moby Dick. As this movie progresses you can expect the dick jokes to reappear when you least expect it like an embarrassing rash. Also, did you know that Herman Melville’s grandfather took part in the Boston Tea Party? History is cool) with her family, whom Wade has yet to meet in spite of the fact that he has been seeing her for over a year and lives with her. Apparently he is so codependant that he can’t handle a weekend without his significant other and after whining about it with his younger brother Chris (Malcolm Barett-the Hurt Locker, Better Off Ted, My Best Friend’s Girl) he decides to do the old drop by.
By the way, if you thought Wade’s urine singing sounded like a lame career, Chris’s job apparently is to pretend to be a doctor and fix broken dolls at a doll hospital. I have a hard time seeing a positive ROI for whoever opened that business in NYC. It was at that moment that I finally nailed down exactly what kind of humor I was going to be subjected to for the next 85 minutes or so. Odds are I could have bunked out at that moment and still written this review with little loss to you, my beloved reader. Damn my integrity.
Anyway, Wade gets up to Sag Harbor. He arrives at the Peeples house only to be sexually assaulted by the family dog (and have his wallet stolen. I guess it was a dog rape/robbery. Not sure who actually finds that funny). He meets Grace’s parents and in particular meets her father Virgil (David Alan Grier-In Living Color, the Woodsman, Stuart Little). He is a federal judge and takes an immediate dislike to Wade. Wade is more welcomed by the rest of her family of cliche’s: her alcoholic drug addicted mother Daphne (S. Epatha Merkerson-Terminator 2 (I thought she looked familiar), Lackawanna Blues, Black Snake Moan), her secretly lesbian sister Gloria (Kali Hawk-Bridesmaids, Get Him To the Greek, Couples Retreat), the sisters “friend” Meg (Kimrie Lewis-Davis-State of Play, the American Dream, Berman & Berman), and her kleptomaniac brother Simon (Tyler James William-Everybody Hates Chris, Let it Shine, Sesame Street).
At that point just go with whatever lame misunderstanding could arise from those circumstances you imagine and odds are it happened. Wade lost his wallet so the father thinks he is a bum. Simon steals something and Wade gets blamed. Gloria gets him accidentally stoned on muchrooms and the father thinks he is a stoner. Everything gets misinterpreted by everyone to make Wade look like a loser (or as much as a loser as a guy who sings pee songs for children can).
The stars:
Like I said, I enjoyed the chemistry between Wade and Virgil. One star. Most of the acting was decent for what the actors were given. One star. The two sisters were both heart breakers (damn that PG-13 rating). One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes:
If cliche’s were an alternative fuel source this movie could have just solved the oil crisis. One black hole. While things were amusing, there was nothing really laugh out loud funny. Most of the humor were that kind of funny you get from political jokes. Intellectually humorous without actually being stimulating. One black hole. Pacing was slow. This film felt a lot longer than 95 minutes. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A straight zero. Typically this means a move you can leave or take, and I think that an apt description. This film is not really worth the cost of a movie ticket but if you are bored at home one evening and have a ready supply of alcohol you should be able to enjoy it. Date movie? Sure, why not. There is some romance and the last few minutes should leave your date believing that love can overcome any obstacle so go for it. No studly dudes to make you look like a putz. Bathroom break? The list is extensive. I’d say the scene on the beach is probably the least valuable. Anything of interest that happens there turns into a running gag that gets beaten into the ground about 8,000 times.
Meh. Not much of a review. The bland movies are always the most boring to write up. Keep an eye out for something interesting tomorrow. I am going to give into the indy film tank and see if I can either catch a lobster or come out covered in leeches. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Have a great day.
Dave
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