Madea's Family Reunion is a movie to angry up the blood. It condemns spousal abuse, but plays child abuse for laughs. It protests the objectification of women while leering for a small eternity at a nubile girl's posterior. It has the gall to lecture the audience about dignity and respect even as it panders to every low impulse imaginable.

Such tactics have made writer-director-star Tyler Perry a rich man. His similarly risible Diary of a Mad Black Woman was a surprise hit last year. Both films revolve around the character of Madea, a domineering senior played by Perry in drag. She's a homily-dispensing machine whose solution is to cluck, gesture broadly and counsel violence. Consider, please, the implications of a male writer-director who must make himself ridiculous in order to portray a feminist viewpoint. The plot involves Madea helping her niece (Rochelle Aytes) to break free from her violent fiancé (Blair Underwood), while also planning the titular reunion.

Perry has a gift for couching cynicism in spiritual uplift -- God is invoked early and often. To disregard this ludicrous and sanctimonious film as good intentions gone awry is to let its creator off the hook. The film is about standing up to bullies. Maybe Perry should look in the mirror.

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