A Madea Christmas 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The one fascination of A Madea Christmas is how little care the country's most popular and powerful indie filmmaker takes in shaping his own material. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: I don't know, maybe it worked as theater. Onscreen, it's torture. Read more

Andrew Barker, Variety: An exceptionally poor piece of holiday cash-in product, rushed and ungainly even by the low standard set by Perry's seven previous Madea films, yet it should be every bit as profitable. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: By the standards of Tyler Perry's Madea series, A Madea Christmas is better than average. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: The humor seems sour and perfunctory from the start. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: You can see, and hear, the clanking of his melodramatic machinery - the gears and pulleys of emotion - but by the time the movie is over, you've been wedged into those gears; they have you. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Only one terrible sub-plot away from being a legitimately good movie. Read more

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: The prolific multi-hyphenate media mogul has pumped out an endless array of movies in recent years, but his latest effort ranks as one of his very worst. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: The same slapdash, lightweight effort as Madea in any other season, with a few Yuletide flourishes. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: Larry the Cable Guy and Madea are an oddly perfect pairing. They're both comedians in drag - Larry just gets to wear pants Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Comedy characters change and grow. Sometimes, as we see in Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas, they become so much like old relatives that their edge is gone. Read more

Nicolas Rapold, New York Times: With a character who can essentially say and do whatever she wants, you might expect a bit more. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: Slapdash, with dialogue and plot points that were cliches in Dickens' era, the pic sends up, then reaffirms, all the values the media sell us each holiday: compassion, forgiveness, tolerance. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Perry seemed to be holding his nose and trudging through the disappointing Madea's Witness Protection, but this time Madea has her groove back, and she's a riot. Read more

Matt Patches, Time Out: A crass weapon in the crusade against the War on Christmas, the yuletide-themed Madea avoids pushing buttons in hopes of meeting the requirements for annual replay on cable. Read more

Sean O'Connell, Washington Post: Bah humbug. Read more