Tyler Perry's 'Madea's Destination Wedding': a review
This article may contain spoilers, although if you've seen one TP film, you've seen them all.
Tyler Perry's Madea's Destination Wedding, the latest in the franchise, premiered on Netflix this past weekend. But what could have been so much better, instead left quite a sour taste in the mouths of many who watched, particularly Bahamians.
The movie, which follows Tiffany (played by Diamond White) and Zavier (played by Xavier Smalls) to their destination wedding in The Bahamas, premiered Friday, July 11, just one day after the island nation celebrated its 52nd day of independence. And while Bahamians everywhere were curious to see a piece of home on the small screen through yet another Tyler Perry production, many concluded that they could've spent their weekend without it.
Brian (played by Perry), Tiffany's dad, has promised to pay for the entire trip as the father of the bride, so as not to admit defeat to ex-wife Debrah's (played by Taja V. Simpson) wealthy husband Dennis.
In true Madea fashion, this means the whole family, including Cora (played by Tamela Mann), Mr. Brown (played by David Mann), Aunt Bam (played by Cassi Davis Patton), Uncle Joe (played by Perry) and BJ (played by Jermaine Harris) all tagged along, wreaking havoc every step of the way.
As a fellow Bahamian, the most satisfying part of the movie was hiring actual Bahamians for speaking (and background) roles instead of having American actors put on a Jamaican accent - a small element that made a huge difference thanks in huge part to local casting directors.
In fact, Perry is no stranger to The Bahamas. The writer-director, who owns White Bay Cay in The Bahamas, shot his 2010 film Why Did I Get Married Too? on the island of Eleuthera, which, quite frankly, offered a much better depiction of the country's landscape compared to Madea's Destination Wedding's indoor shots of the Atlantis resort.
And while Atlantis has been the only attraction in tourism ads for decades, Paradise Island, on which Atlantis resides, is connected by two bridges to the mainland of New Providence, which Bahamian and foreign viewers hoped to have seen more of. Instead, most of the film was shot in the resort which made it feel like one long advertisement.
By never venturing to the other side of the bridge, Perry missed out on so many opportunities to include aspects of Bahamian culture, such as the family's reaction to trying the nation's number one delicacy - conch. How funny would it have been watching Aunt Bam, Mr. Brown and Madea go "under the bridge" to Potter's Cay to give the tasty sea snail a try?
Or even certain R-rated slang, which I won't list here, that Uncle Joe, in particular, would have loved to learn and use on the ladies in the club scene?
And the biggest display of them all, a Junkanoo rushout, which could have easily been included at the end of the nuptials.
Instead, what viewers got, apart from a few funny lines from Mr. Brown and Uncle Joe, were scenes that went on way past their expiration date, a script that overall was not funny, and a story whose plot contained more holes than Swiss cheese (because the "climax" never really went anywhere).
There are also a few scenes that left locals questioning whether they were actually shot in the country, as well as a number of editing faux pas where it was so painfully obvious that main characters were actually stunt doubles.
Nonetheless, it's always lovely seeing the original cast and it was even lovelier getting to see and hear local actress Nicole Musgrove, the front desk agent. But all in all, Madea's Big Happy Family (2011), Boo 2! A Madea Halloween (2017), A Madea Family Funeral (2019), and A Madea Homecoming (2022), just to name a few, had much funnier and more developed scripts compared to Madea's Destination Wedding. Production seemed quite rushed, the script had no depth, there was no character development, and Atlantis is not The Bahamas.
Tyler Perry's Madea's Destination Wedding is now streaming on Netflix.
