I haven’t had a lot of luck with Tyler Perry movies, (though I did enjoy Precious) so I have to admit, it was a bit of a challenge when the folks out at Lions Gate sent out a copy of Why Did I Get Married Too? But it was actually something of a surprise to discover that there was actually something good to be had here.

Why Did I Get Married Too? follows four couples who just happen to be good friends as they go through their lives, usually with a lot of drama back and forth. Things wax and wane, and the strongest marriages collapse  unexpectedly. But an annual retreat–this year to the Bahamas–may improve things no one expected to see improved…or destroy them.

Drama, ladies and gentlement–the drama llama is set loose and running all throughout this thing, to a degree so preposterous it’s almost a parody of itself. Seriously, folks, by the last half hour you’re likely going to start wishing for heavy things to just suddenly appear out of the sky and fall on some people. I’ve never felt so much seething rage toward movie characters in a long time. It’s ludicrous–watching a wife shoot up the bedroom she shares with her husband because she thinks he’s cheating on him reallly can only qualify as ludicrous. And watching Janet Jackson go berserk in a house full of glass furniture with a golf club…well…some people would likely call that “powerful” or “moving”.  I call it “pathetic and sad”.

And the last fifteen minutes of Why Did I Get Married Too? may well be the most unbearable of all, as justice is utterly dispensed with in favor of giving Janet Jackson’s character the best ending in the entire movie.

However, I did enjoy some of the earlier parts of it–the scenery in the Bahamas is patently beautiful–even if it was a little slow, it was slow surrounded by incredible beauty, so in all honesty, I didn’t mind so much.  The problem is, we don’t stay in Paradise forever, where it’s fun but a bit slow; no, we have to come back to “the real world” where everything’s a preachy, sludgy mess of incredibly overblown melodrama.

If I didn’t enjoy the sights of the Caribbean so much, Why Did I Get Married Too? would have offered absolutely nothing of value, and the Screenhead Ten Scale and I would be having a much different conversation. But for now, it’s handing out a three out of ten to this sad, sorry mess that started out as merely slow.