Writer/director/star Tyler Perry's first movie, his first hit--and audiences' first multiplex exposure to Madea.
Watch the E! Online livestream of Tyler Perry's Temptation red carpet, Sat. March 16!
On the heels of her Oscar nomination for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Taraji P. Henson brought "intense conviction," the Boston Globe judged, to Perry's "best movie to date."
It's got Janet Jackson, whom experts, by which we mean us, have long contended is an underrated movie actress. It's got snow. And it's got plenty of melodrama to keep you in soap suds.
Perry's biggest box-office hit to date, with nearly $100 million in domestic ticket sales.
Tyler Perry simply starred in this adaptation of the James Patterson bestellers. Critics were not kind to the crime thriller, but you could call it a fascinating study of a multi-hyphenate breaking free of his signature character and trying to establish himself as a dramatic leading man.
Look at this as the counterpoint to Alex Cross. A new Perry play, produced and filmed in 2012, and available on DVD, it's perhaps a sign that Ms. Simmons' creator really isn't so anxious to rid himself of the housecoat after all.
Idris Elba, whom Perry replaced in Alex Cross, by the by, is no fan of Madea, as he told Vibe. So, it should tell you something about the script for this single-father drama that Elba liked it, and did it.
First off, there's this: As we've noted before, the J.J. Abrams-directed reboot is Perry's most critically acclaimed movie. And secondly, there's this: It's a Star Trek movie with Tyler Perry in it! That's more wonderfully random than Christian Slater showing up in Star Trek 6: An Undiscovered Country.
This sitcom, Perry's first, is perhaps the best way, outside of checking out the filmed versions of his plays, to experience the entertainer's career as it began: working laughs and more from live audiences.
More photos: Tyler Perry's Temptation star Kim Kardashian, as pop culture queen