Search - Martin Lawrence Live - Runteldat (Widescreen Edition) on DVD

He's a comedian. Let's here more jokes.

elvistcob@lvcm.com | Las Vegas, NV | 03/04/2003

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Martin Lawrence is a guy who is very likeable at times, and shows a lot of talent at times. The problem is, I wish he could show more talent with quality material. He's released a bunch of movies that seem to be commercially viable enough to keep his career going for awhile, but from what I've seen of them, once again I wish there was a lot more quality material, and not just the dependence on his star power. This is the same problem I have with this concert film. There are enough good things to give it a viewing, but I wish it could have been a lot, lot more. I will first address the "Adult Language" issue. This movie looked like, on purpose, every effort was made to put as much swearing as possible in as a marketing move. I'm not offended by this, and there are moments which do use it successfully. It's that after awhile it becomes tiring, adds little to the humor, and brands him as well, a boor at times. I need to tell Mr. Lawrence that my six-year old was coloring at the other end of the room while this was on. He wasn't really listening to it, but picked up his head and asked why there were so many bad words in the movie. I replied that he thinks they are funny. My six-year-old, who doesn't swear, shrugged and went back to his coloring. Since his grammar, by this example shows that it doesn't shock anybody anymore, I think he'd be a better comedian by trying to add some big words to his vocabulary.OK, so how was the performance otherwise? We get some parallels with other comedians here. He describes his misfortunes the way Richard Pryor used to do it. But he doesn't do it as well as Richard Pryor did. He also has his insights on life, and offers advice, like paying attention to your children. But Chris Rock, who swears almost as much, is much funnier and more insightful than Lawrence.But to show I'm not a prude when it comes to sex or language, there were a few good moments in this area. He does have a hysterical point in the show where he encourages people contemplating marriage to check out their prospective partners "packages". He goes into delightfully obscene detail, especially when playing the part of the female, in doing a much more thorough inspection job than, well, the weapons inspectors in Iraq. That was the highlight of the film for me, and it's what the film needed a lot more of. The movie is worth a look, but right now he's just minor-league material in my eyes when compared to other comedians."