I Can Do Bad All by Myself 2009

Nick Schager, Time Out: Narratively and grammatically dim redemption pap. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Perry plugs into the primal power of gospel, blues, soul, and the black church in ways that make Bad far more affecting than it has any right to be. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: It is easy to knock the Tyler Perry formula, but you have to give the man credit: He knows how to create meaty roles for women. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's the best Tyler Perry movie to date -- the writer/director/actor/mogul's most confident and competent mixture of uplifting black middle-class melodrama and low-down comedy. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Unashamedly fond of mixing messages of vengeance and piety, Perry nevertheless manages to reduce the tonal whiplash, so that this newest entry glides a little more easily from broad laughs to teary anguish and finally sweeping uplift. Read more

Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader: Contrived, sentimental, tonally bipolar, and as predictable as clockwork, this latest from chitlin' circuit impressario Tyler Perry is just a fat slab of ecstatic entertainment. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: After a summer of phony, pasty rom-coms, do this: See a movie where old-fashioned notions of love, faith, strength, and the possibility of redemption are taken seriously. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Like a chef who keeps making the same recipe over and over, Tyler Perry has found his strength and he's sticking to it. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: By shoving half a dozen songs -- gospel, funk and soul -- into the film, Perry shows he still hasn't mastered pace and learned to sacrifice scenes to make his movies faster and smoother. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Though no one would cite him for the cinematic qualities of his visually pedestrian films, Perry is a master conductor of emotions. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: There are absolutely no surprises in store, plot-wise, though Perry's approach has always been to rework familiar narrative conventions in such a way as to reaffirm key values. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: If the Atlanta impresario is just bored with cranking out two adaptations a year of his earlier stage work, the audience is getting restless, too. Read more