IMDb > Big Momma's House (2000)
Big Momma's House
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Overview

User Rating:
4.7/10   19,477 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 35% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Raja Gosnell
Writers (WGA):
Darryl Quarles (story)
Darryl Quarles (screenplay) ...
more
Contact:
View company contact information for Big Momma's House on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
2 June 2000 (USA) more
Genre:
Action | Comedy | Crime more
Tagline:
This FBI agent is going undercover... and he's concealing more than a weapon. more
Plot:
An FBI agent disguises himself as an old lady to protect a beautiful federal witness and her son. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
1 win & 8 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(63 articles)
Big Momma's House 3 in the Works
 (From ReelzChannel. 4 September 2009, 7:24 AM, PDT)

Weekly Ketchup: Disney buys Marvel, WB announces Lobo & Deadman
 (From Rotten Tomatoes. 4 September 2009, 6:27 AM, PDT)

User Comments:
Good, but not as good as it could have been with some radical revisions more (136 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Martin Lawrence ... Malcolm Turner

Nia Long ... Sherry Pierce

Paul Giamatti ... John

Jascha Washington ... Trent Pierce

Terrence Howard ... Lester Vesco (as Terrence Dashon Howard)

Anthony Anderson ... Nolan
Ella Mitchell ... Hattie Mae Pierce (Big Momma)
Carl Wright ... Ben Rawley
Phyllis Applegate ... Sadie

Starletta DuPois ... Miss Patterson
Jessie Mae Holmes ... Miss Other Patterson

Nicole Prescott ... Lena

Octavia Spencer ... Twila (as Octavia L. Spencer)
Tichina Arnold ... Ritha

Cedric the Entertainer ... Reverend
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Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Big Mamas Haus (Germany)
more
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for crude humor including sexual innuendo, and for language and some violence.
Runtime:
98 min
Country:
USA | Germany
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Screenwriter Darryl Quarles came up with the idea for the name "Big Momma" because it was what the neighborhood kids used to call his own real life mother. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: After Malcolm is done delivering Rita's baby, there are no tools and there is not enough time to cut the umbilical cord, which obviously has been cut. more
Quotes:
John: I'm a married man, I'm not used to this much attention. more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in "The Office: Weight Loss (#5.1)" (2008) more
Soundtrack:
Big Momma's Theme more

FAQ

Why is it that in the thunderstorm scene when Sherry gets into bed they call it a mistake of having the mustache show up on what sherry thinks is big momma.
What are the differences between the British BBFC-12 version and the uncut US version?
more
Good, but not as good as it could have been with some radical revisions, 25 August 2006
7/10
Author: Brandt Sponseller from New York City

The biggest problem with Big Momma's house is that you can often see just how funny it should be, but the cast and crew are not able to sustain the occasional hilarious parts with any consistency.

It doesn't seem to help that Big Momma's House wants to be more than a comedy. Writers Darryl Quarles and Don Rhymer shoot for a combination of a crime comedy ala Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and a romantic comedy. But the core comedy is absurdist, while the mostly serious crime stuff is so underwritten that it would be better absent, and the somewhat serious rom-com stuff is so generic and predictable that it has all the surprise of attending Mass.

To me, the comedy being absurdist is a plus, but it doesn't mesh well with other modes. It's ridiculous, of course, that Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) is trying to pass himself off as "Big Momma" Hattie Mae Pierce (Ella Mitchell). That's a large part of what makes it funny. However, director Raja Gosnell's decision to play the rest of the cast as mostly deadpan is a strange one. It leads the viewer to take the film in a more realist mode, but if you're doing that, you keep asking yourself why anyone else would believe that Turner is actually Big Momma. Gosnell should have gone for another approach during the Turner as Big Momma scenes. It's not that they're never funny, but too often the deadpan interaction breaks the humor.

However, the deadpan attitude works wonders when Mitchell is Big Momma. Mitchell is a fantastic here as a comic actress and especially Paul Giamatti as John is hilarious interacting with her. Once those too-brief scenes ended, I was wishing they wouldn't have, and when they reappeared again at the end, it made me more fully realize how much better they were. A whole film could have and should have been written around Mitchell as Big Momma with Giamatti and Lawrence interacting with her and beautiful co-star Nia Long via some other story.

Even with these problems, Big Momma is an enjoyable film. My wife enjoyed it even more than I did, we're looking forward to watching Big Momma's House 2, and we'll certainly watch this again in the future. But it's a case of moments of brilliance poking through so that you see just how much better it could have been.

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