Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins: Review By moviegeek

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins boasts a talented cast and an overused, yet occasionally successful, premise. In the end, only one character is funny in a garbled mess of slapstick immaturity, forced emotion, and perfectly wasted talent.

Martin Lawrence stars as Roscoe Jenkins, or RJ Stevens on TV. He hosts a very popular talk show and is currently engaged to former Survivor champ, Bianca. How this woman outwitted, outlasted, or outplayed anyone is a bizarre mystery, but whatever. It is RJ's parents' 50th Anniversary celebration at the Southern homestead, and he is reluctantly going. With him he brings Bianca and his son, Jamal.

Roscoe has been detached from his family in the past years and hopes to impress them. Well in a series of unfunny slapstick gags, he ends up, of course, losing his clothes and luggage. That of course requires him to wear the only clothes one can find--clown clothes.

As he reconnects with his family, two old faces come into play. One is his cousin Clyde, who, in childhood, has done nothing but torment Roscoe and make his life miserable. The most destructive of his mean streak comes when he steals Lucinda, the Southern bell of the area, from him after a cheated bet. Roscoe meets both faces to different reactions.

The entire movie is studded with familiar faces including Michael Clarke Duncan, James Earl Jones, Cedric the Entertainer, and Mike Epps. The one hilarious cast choice in the movie is Mo'Nique. She had me keeled over laughing in several scenes with her whiplash comebacks and hilarious commentary. I was thankful for something to praise in the movie.

But then again, there's everyone else. Each and every talent is wasted here in the confused screenplay. The 'jerk' Roscoe, who seems like a perfect match for his mean-spirited woman Bianca, falls for his childhood love Lucinda. But what doesn't make sense is what she can see in him. The parents have no control in the family or authority. After the predictable pratfalls and slapstick jokes, one after another, the screenplay turns into a smarmy (I love that word) mess. It turns into a soupy confession of everyone's personal problems.

I prefer similar comedies like Meet the Parents/Fockers, where the main character is likable and we can sympathize with his pratfalls. In this, Martin Lawrence creates a cold, dingy, heartless character egged on only by childhood grudge. I personally have never found Martin Lawrence to be all that funny, and maybe that's the larger reason why I didn't connect with the movie's humor. This unloving family is hard to like or laugh with.

Every piece of this movie, except wonderful Mo'Nique, is a disaster. The movie was not doomed from the start and had potential to be better. But it isn't. Through recycled routine of plot and unfunny situations, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins falls flat.