Big Momma's House

Stealing other people's ideas is endemic to Hollywood. Big Momma's House is Stakeout meets The Nutty Professor, with Martin Lawrence doing his Eddie Murphy impression.

The story doesn't matter. You know it already. Lawrence takes the Richard Dreyfuss role and Paul Giamatti is Emilio Estevez. Instead of watching the girlfriend's apartment, waiting for an escaped killer to show, they watch her Southern grandma's place, waiting for her to show, followed by her escaped killer ex-boyfriend.

When the grandmother leaves to spend time with a sick relative, Lawrence copies Murphy, when he played every one of The Nutty Prof's fat family, and dresses up as her.

It is a grotesque sight, more insulting than humourous. When her pretty granddaughter (Nia Long) arrives, he does what Dreyfuss did and falls for her. In the nothing-new-under-the-sun department, predictability is an accepted code of practice.

The jokes are signposted well in advance so that slow kids at the back can keep up. Big Momma plays basketball, cooks foul food, boogies in church and does a stint as midwife. Sooner or later her makeup's going to melt and guess whose underneath? Make it soon, you wish. Then it's over.