{"id":9844,"date":"2024-12-10T18:04:07","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T23:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9844"},"modified":"2024-12-10T18:04:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T23:04:07","slug":"meet-the-blacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/meet-the-blacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Blacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Meet the Blacks <\/strong>(2016)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Freestyle Releasing\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive language, some sexual material, violence, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Deon Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Deon Taylor and Nicole DeMasi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: The RZA\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Thomas Connor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 1, 2016 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mike Epps, Gary Owen, Zulay Henao, Bresha Webb, Alex Henderson, Lil Duval, George Lopez, Mike Tyson, King Bach, Charlie Murphy, DeRay Davis, Lavell Crawford, Perez Hilton, Michael Blackson, Tameka Cottle, Phil Austin, Kate Enggren.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $9.1M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: NO STARS!!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meet the Blacks<\/strong> is one invitation you should definitely decline. Not only that, you should make a wide berth around any theater unlucky enough to be showing it. It\u2019s not a movie, it\u2019s a crime against humanity. I\u2019m not exaggerating, it\u2019s really that bad. In fact, it\u2019s beyond bad. It stretches into the infinite reaches of badness and keeps on going.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are no words to accurately describe how bad Meet the Blacks<\/strong> is. Adjectives like terrible, horrible, awful and lousy don\u2019t even come close. I knew it would be a dud; the signs were right there in front of me. It received very little in the way of promotion. It didn\u2019t screen in advance for critics or audiences. It opened on just over 1000 screens. I\u2019m actually surprised my local multiplex got it; they never get any movies from this particular studio (Freestyle Releasing). That\u2019s the only good thing about Meet the Blacks<\/strong>; I didn\u2019t have to go far to see it. Of course, it could be argued that just stepping outside one\u2019s front door is too far to go to see this movie. In any event, I did have to sacrifice 90 minutes of my life that I\u2019ll never get back. Such is the price critics sometimes have to pay.<\/p>\n

\u00a0On its most basic level, Meet the Blacks<\/strong> is a spoof of The Purge, the 2013 horror-thriller about a near-future America in which the government has set aside one night a year for citizens to go on a crime spree. For 12 hours, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING!) is legal. Citizens, especially those in the upper class, literally get away with murder. I\u2019ll tell you what, I wish I could purge Meet the Blacks<\/strong> from my memory.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As indicated by the title, the story centers on the Blacks and their first night in their new home. Since the Blacks are actually black, the title has a double meaning. Ha ha. That\u2019s the least offensive thing about this movie if you can believe it. Carl Black (Epps, The Hangover) moves his family- hot Latina wife Lorena (Henao, The Single Moms Club), sassy teenage daughter Allie (Webb), oddball son Carl Jr. (Henderson) and pervy ex-con cousin Cronut (comedian-rapper Duval)- from Chicago to Beverly Hills after coming into a lot of money. Okay, he steals it from a drug dealer he used to work for (along with a huge stash of weed). Their first night in their new home just happens to coincide with the annual Purge. Naturally, the Blacks are targeted by their lily-white neighbors who don\u2019t want them there. Also, Carl\u2019s creditors show up looking for a different kind of payback. That\u2019s right, black people never pay their bills, I get it. Talk about negative stereotyping.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Predictably, Meet the Blacks<\/strong> is yet another spoof aimed at black audiences that revels in negative stereotyping. Director Deon Taylor (Supremacy) introduces a collection of insulting character types like the smart-mouth daughter, the thug boyfriend (comedian King Bach) she hides in her bedroom and the do-rag wearing cousin. But here\u2019s where Meet the Blacks<\/strong> differs from other recent, equally offensive spoofs like A Haunted House (1 or 2, it doesn\u2019t matter) and Fifty Shades of Black. It\u2019s also insulting to whites, Hispanics and Asians. In this movie, all white people are depicted as bigots. Shortly after meeting the new family on the block, the chirpy next-door neighbors says, \u201cIt\u2019s a little ironic that your name is Black.\u201d Sitcom star George Lopez shows up briefly as \u201cPresident El Bama\u201d. The one Asian in the movie is a manicurist. I\u2019ll say this for Meet the Blacks<\/strong>; it\u2019s an equal opportunity offender.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There is absolutely NOTHING funny in Meet the Blacks<\/strong>. It\u2019s not even funny by accident. It\u2019s an excruciatingly unfunny movie completely devoid of wit, intelligence and style. It\u2019s loud and shrill. The characters scream most of their dialogue at the tops of their lungs. Speaking of which, if you removed \u201cpurge\u201d, \u201cf***\u201d and the n-word, you\u2019d have only 15-20 minutes of dialogue (and that\u2019s being generous). It name-drops like crazy. Instead of coming up with actual jokes, writers Taylor and Nicole DeMasi try to cram as many celebrity names and pop culture references as possible in a 90-minute time span (which still feels too long).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not only is Meet the Blacks<\/strong> not funny, it feels kind of off. For example, Carl Jr.- who is called \u201cCarl\u2019s Jr.\u201d (in reference to the fast-food chain) more than once- likes to dress like a vampire (cape and fangs). This makes no sense at all. A cameo by boxer Mike Tyson as a deranged party clown also feels weird. Then there\u2019s the overzealous neighborhood watch guy (blogger Hilton). Considering what went down with Trayvon Martin a few years back, this is in incredibly bad taste. Then again, so is the rest of the movie. It seems to want to make a statement about racism in America, but lacks the integrity or credibility to do so effectively. In fact, Meet the Blacks<\/strong> lacks anything resembling integrity, artistic or otherwise. The acting, if you can call it that, is atrocious. From a production standpoint, it\u2019s very sloppily made. The editing, lighting and sound all reek of incompetence.<\/p>\n

Meet the Blacks<\/strong> is terrible in every imaginable way. It\u2019s even worse than Zoolander 2. I can\u2019t imagine anybody with an IQ over 50 wanting to see this stupid, bafflingly bad movie. Every feeble attempt at humor lands with a resounding thud. It doesn\u2019t even deserve to be uttered in the same breath as \u201ccomedy\u201d. It gets a \u201cNO STARS!!!\u201d rating only because there is no lower rating I can award it. Think of my review as more of a warning to stay far, FAR away from this humongous piece of crap. When it was finally over, I felt like I\u2019d been robbed and assaulted. Right before the closing credits start to roll, the words \u201cto be continued\u201d appear on the screen. Doesn\u2019t that constitute some sort of threat? Quick, somebody call the police!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet the Blacks (2016)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Freestyle Releasing\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive language, some sexual material, violence, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Deon Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Deon Taylor and Nicole DeMasi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: The RZA\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Thomas Connor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 1, 2016 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mike Epps, Gary Owen, Zulay Henao, Bresha Webb, Alex Henderson, Lil Duval, George […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Meet-the-Blacks-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9844"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10109,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9844\/revisions\/10109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}