Which Lame-Seeming Martin Lawrence Comedy Is Which?
2/8/08 at 12:22 PM
We had basically come to peace with the notion that Martin Lawrence's comedy Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins was coming to theaters soon, so imagine our surprise during last week's Super Bowl to see advertisements for a totally different Martin Lawrence comedy, a Disney movie in which he plays Raven-Symoné's dad. What the hell is going on? A side-by-side comparison:
![]() Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins |
![]() College Road Trip |
|
| Genre | Buppie comedy à la Tyler Perry. | Disney family comedy à la Steve Martin. |
| Setup | A successful L.A. talk-show host visits his overbearing southern family. | An overprotective dad accompanies his daughter as she visits colleges. |
| Inspiring co-stars | James Earl Jones, Cedric the Entertainer, Mo'Nique, Louis C.K. | Raven-Symoné, Vincent Pastore, Donny Osmond. |
| Promising moment in trailer | "Man, I thought Nell Carter was dead!" | Donny Osmond. |
| Unpromising moment in trailer | Close-up of skunk's asshole. | Taser to the nuts. |
| Target audience | New York's Amos Barshad. | People who kind of liked that episode of The Sopranos where Tony takes Meadow on college visits but wished it were a Disney family comedy. |
| Release date | Today. | March 7. |
| Likelihood of receiving the best review in that day's New York Times arts section | 100 percent. | Slim to none. |


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