Movie Review - Think Like a Man Too

There are too many characters in this movie. Half of whom don't matter. This includes this film's so-called star, Kevin Hart. Hart seems to have a Napoleon complex here. His character is the shortest but still has to be the biggest, the center of it all and in control of everything. He's certainly the loudest, even as he plays the Bridesmaids Kristen Wiig role. Nevertheless, he's not funny. He's simply loud and grating. It might not have been so bad if his character weren't so stupid. His character in Ride Along did idiotic things, but at least his character was smarter and was able to solve problems. Hart's character is totally useless here.

The premise is that Kevin Hart as Cedric Ward is the best man for the wedding of his friend Michael, played by Terrence Jenkins. They live in Los Angeles but fly to Las Vegas where the wedding is set to take place. Michael is marrying Candace, played by Regina Hall. All three along with four other couples join the wedding party at a fancy hotel on the Vegas Strip.

The other couples include Zeke and Maya, played by Romany Malco and Megan Good respectively. Zeke is a playboy who's slept with many women in L.A., and apparently many women in Las Vegas whom he immediately dumped. This makes Maya feel like she could be the next. They're both just dating, but Maya is perhaps wanting more.

Kristen and Jeremy, played by Gabrielle Union and Jerry Ferrara, are recently married. After dating for nine years, Kristen wants to have a baby, but Jeremy is still very much a big baby himself, a big baby who likes to smoke pot and play video games, so he's anxious about having one. Kristen might be more responsible but could possibly embrace her inner child more.

Dominic and Lauren, played by Michael Ealy and Taraji P. Henson, are newlyweds. They're very hot for each other, but both are ambitious. Dominic wants to be a top chef and own his own restaurant. Lauren wants to climb the corporate ladder and be a chief executive at a fortune 500 company somewhere. Job opportunities threaten to pull them apart or into a doomed, long-distance relationship.

Finally, there's Bennett and Tish. They're played by Gary Owens and Wendi McLendon-Covey respectively. They're the old boring married couple. They've been hitched for decades probably and have several children. They're the definition of settled.

All the men of each of the five couples go off to celebrate the bachelor party and all the women go off for the bachelorette party. The movie cuts back-and-forth between the men and the women, as each group hits the usual Vegas spots like the pool, the casinos and the strip club.

For the men, the running joke is how they try to do fun things but keep getting thwarted. For the women, the running joke is how they were being prevented from doing anything by Michael's mother, Ms. Loretta, played by Jenifer Lewis.

Along the way, there are funny jokes and interesting issues that are raised, but the movie is derailed with a very contrived plot that sucks up needed time that could have been devoted to less ridiculous things. The contrived plot is basically that Cedric has to raise $40,000 in one night, which leads them landing in prison.

All of that is padding to the run time. It's a diversion, a bad diversion because it draws attention away from scenes that actually explore issues pertinent to the book by Steve Harvey on which the original film was based. There is the issue of parenthood and looking at it from various angles. The movie could have really tackled those angles, but instead Hart vaccums up all the oxygen.

Yes, the first film has a similar diversion, but the diversion was in service of the characters, as well as comparing and contrasting the relationships and outlooks of men versus women. The diversion here is only to generate cheap laughs. It also tips the hand that the audience of this movie is more for women who might prefer Magic Mike but with more African-Americans in the male stripper line-up. The introduction and objectification of Dennis Haysbert is proof of that.

The movie does add more white characters, two twenty-something frat boys, Isaac, played by Adam Brody, and Terrell, played by David Walton. In reality, the movie is all about the black men, but the film briefly pits Brody and Walton against Hart, and it could have been a situation like Wiig against Rose Byrne's character in Bridesmaids, which could have really been funny, but the film quickly drops it.

The cameos were pointless and went nowhere. It was a funny gag to see Floyd Mayweather who is the same height as Kevin Hart but who is a quintuple champion in boxing be surrounded by bodyguards twice his size and height. The cameo from Drake probably would have been better if he hadn't recently been underwhelming in Anchorman 2. Kanye West's name is dropped so much, it would have been nice if he actually had a cameo. Speaking of appearances from rappers and R&B singers, I wouldn't have minded if Chris Brown returned. That's how dull this movie was!

Two Stars out of Five.
Rated PG-13 for crude sexual content, partial nudity, language and drug material.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 45 mins.