It’s been nearly 20 years since “Why Did I Get Married?”, the original Tyler Perry movie that first introduced these characters and their variously troubled relationships — and 16 years since the sequel to that film, “Why Did I Get Married Too?”. So it feels only normal, at the start of this latest outing for the gang, that we should be treated to some fairly heavy exposition.
“Why Did I Get Married Again?” certainly doesn’t stint on it: As the film begins, we catch up with fiery Angela (Tasha Smith) and her husband Marcus (Michael Jai White), a now somewhat cowed figure who has quit his womanizing in practice but kept the macho attitude. The pair are preparing to host a dinner ahead of the marriage of their daughter Jasmine (Armani Greer) to football player Wesley (Everett Osborne), who happens to be the son of their friend Roselyn (Taraji P. Henson, new to the franchise but treated by all and sundry as if she had been part of the adventure all along).
Tasha and Marcus have of course invited their old friends from the first two films, Shelley (Jill Scott) and Troy (Lamman Rucker), and Diane (Sharon Leal) and Terry (Tyler Perry), who all have children of their own, in their early twenties. Meanwhile, Shelley’s old troublemaker ex, Mike (Richard T. Jones), turns up for some reason, this time dating a much younger woman who happens to be the ex of Angela and Marcus’s son Marcus Jr. (Da’Vinchi).
It seems like an overly convoluted set-up — not least because the younger generation don’t bring much to the film apart from narrative developments that reflect the older generation back to them. So, Marcus Jr. is a hot-headed skirt-chaser like his old man, and Diane and Terry fret that their son T.J. (Jaden Michael) may conversely be a little mild. The film is fundamentally uninterested in the younger people as characters, however, which gives it a strange flavor: The kids constantly provide the (rather thin) action, and the older lot then argue, worry or wryly chuckle about these events, saying things like, “Marcus Jr. is just like you used to be, Marcus.”
That is to say, the film’s exposition-speak continues long after its opening scenes, permanently relating to the audience what is happening, who is who, and why it concerns the franchise’s veteran characters. That doesn’t make for very enjoyable watching, and it compounds a tonal problem raised by the multi-generational approach: Where the older characters are cheerfully upfront and confrontational about their problems, the younger people have grown up in a world that sees things differently, and therefore appear bland. You have to feel sorry for Marcus Jr., portrayed as the lone bad egg among the dreary new set, whose greatest sin is trying to get with his spoken-for ex-girlfriend a couple of times, only to get a furious dressing-down from Angela in front of everybody.
A lightly macho tone prevails, even as Perry writes a handful of quite sensitive scenes for his female characters, such as Shelley’s fears about her aging mother, or Roselyn’s anguish about her son rejecting her. That leads to a curious scene in which Marcus somehow bests the insanely buff Wesley at weightlifting, which seems like nothing so much as wish-fulfillment — and to an even more curious treatment of the character of T.J., who appears to be written as homosexual without this ever being stated. Stranded in a no-man’s land where everybody deplores toxic masculinity but the guys still need to be given something to do, the film doesn’t manage to contrive any actual fun.
Netflix money oozes from every pore of “Why Did I Get Married Again?,” most visibly when the gang head to Lake Como for the nuptials. The ladies duly appear at brunch in a variety of chic ensembles and statement jewelry, and the wedding itself is suitably plush, but all of this merely adds to the film’s strange detachment from reality — an overstuffed chamber-piece with a tenuous connection to actual life and concerns.
Among the performers, Smith rules the roost as the no-nonsense Angela, and Jones acquits himself tolerably on comic relief duties as the pathetic Mike. Henson, apparently acting in another film entirely, gives us a character unable to submit to true love in the face of her perceived duties; alone of all the actors, she gets close to something truthful, but that still sits quite uncomfortably with the ambient tone of woolly half-jokes and that’s-life sermonizing.
That spirit finds its most naked expression in a drably conceived scene toward the film’s conclusion, in which the older characters gather in a semi-circle to literally explain everything to the younger generation (who are also seated in a semi-circle). Everybody takes turns to speak their hard truth or life lesson or warm expression of love. A wedding dance scene — interspersed with bloopers to remind you that you have been watching a comedy — caps off proceedings with something like relief, the assignment finally completed.
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