BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE

Directed by Raja Gosnell. Starring Martin Lawrence, Nia Long, Ella Mitchell

It sounds hard to believe, but somewhere out there, there is a comic who makes Eddie Murphy look like the most subtle and sophisticated humorist on the planet: his name is Martin Lawrence.

Best known thus far for the lamentable Blue Streak, Lawrence's speciality is a sort of 'zany', hyperactive Murphy-lite slapstick shtick, with nods to Robin Williams and a slavish refusal to keep his mouth shut for more than a millisecond.

It's a mongrel combination of Mrs. Doubtfire, Nuns on the Run and The Nutty Professor, and it's every bit as forbidding as it sounds. Lawrence plays a top FBI agent who is staking out the ex-girlfriend (Long) of a bank-robber who has escaped from prison. In order to nail her, he is required to assume the identity of the girl's gigantic, superannuated southern granny (named Hattie Mae Pierce – 'Big Momma' to all her extended clan). Thus it comes to pass that our hero waddles around the place sporting a wig, enormous false tits and a belly to match, and affecting a Dixie-fried falsetto which has your fingers inexorably reaching for the back of your throat.

A barrage of 'oooooooh, chile!'s and 'lawwwdy, mistuh!'s ensue, as Lawrence elevates the Uncle Tom minstrel routine to previously-unscaled peaks, with all manner of stunningly unoriginal plot contrivances thrown in along the way. He has to adopt midwife duties during a childbirth scene, shake off the amorous advances of a horny sixty-year-old man, run rings around fit young men on a basketball court and lay his self-defence instructor to waste, all the while carefully concealing his true identity and striving not to fall in love with the girl he must bring to justice – it is, as you've no doubt twigged, an absolute nightmare to behold, and it thunders along so noisily and furiously that you don't even have the choice of switching off or catching up on sleep.

The occasional scene prompts you to laugh at (if not exactly with) the poor guy, since he's patently trying his hardest and his comic timing is still all over the shop, his delivery's too hyperactive to hit home properly, and his voice makes you want to blow your own brains out.

Sadly, Lawrence looks set to haunt us for many years to come, so we might as well get used to it: I'll never say a word against Eddie Murphy again.