Kernel Rating (out of 5):
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Length: 95 minutes
Age Appropriate for: 14+. Some violence in the form of family members grappling; an extramarital affair, a same-sex couple, some kissing, implied sexual activity, and sexually themed jokes; some cursing; and discussions of drug use.
‘Peeples’ goes the ‘Meet the Parents’ route, pairing an underachieving, normal-guy male lead with a beautiful, overprotected love interest who can’t bear to tell her father of their relationship. It’s all very clichéd indeed, throwing a whole mess of stupid humor and false emotional turmoil at us to see what sticks. Barely any does.
By Roxana Hadadi
The first sign that “Peeples” is not going to be very good is that the film is “presented” by Tyler Perry. As in, the film is actually called “Tyler Perry Presents Peeples,” because that’s not egomaniacal at all on Perry’s part. So already, you can tell this film will be in his wheelhouse of emotionally trite, surprisingly conservative thinking; too often his work is based in twisted misogyny and cultural stereotypes. And so it goes with “Peeples,” co-produced by Perry and written and directed by Tina Gordon Chism; it offends, it drags, and it bores, delivering the same five or six jokes in the same five or six ways.