Some of the greatest movie comedies of all time have revolved around men dressing up in drag and trying to pass themselves off as women ("Some Like It Hot" and "Tootsie" being the prime examples). Ironically, that's also been the basis for some of the worst comedies ever made ("White Chicks" being the prime example I can think of at the moment). Somewhere in the middle lie the Big Momma movies, both the original, made in 2000,and the sequel from 2006, creatively entitled "Big Momma's House 2." Once again, Martin Lawrence stars as the FBI agent who this time goes undercover as a nanny to the children of a man who may be involved in some sort of major threat to national security (yawn!).
In turns of its storyline, the movie falls somewhere between "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Mary Poppins," with Big Momma managing to heal the rift in the family and making the neglectful father a model parent by the end of the film. The crime scenario is beyond stupid and leads to a whole host of idiotic slapstick scenes involving Big Momma taking on the gun-wielding bad guys, but if you have a high level of tolerance for this sort of thing, "Big Momma's House 2" should provide you with a good share of laughs amid all the clunkers.
Lawrence exhibits a great deal of energy in the role of Big Momma, but he never brings the kind of insight and believability to the part that Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis or Dustin Hoffman managed to do in their respective turns at cross dressing comedy. Unfortunately, Lawrence's portrayal is all surface imitation, utterly devoid of the kind of subtle shading that might suggest he had actually gotten in touch with his character. This film would be a trifle less innocuous if it hadn't been done so much better already.
