June 6, 2001 –"Kingdom Come" and kingdom go in this funeral romp, if there is such a genre. Anyhow, there is now — and, actually, always has been.
The movie is said to be based on "Dearly Departed," a traveling black stage show written by David Dean Bottrell and Jessie Jones, who also wrote this screenplay. According to one critic, it doesn't adapt well to the silver screen: "What slays them in the second balcony, flattens on the screen."
Don't run away yet. The movie stars Whoopie Goldberg as the grieving matriarch who has lost her husband, the family patriarch; LL Cool J as her son; Vivica A. Fox as his wife; Jada Pinkett Smith as a shrew and Toni Braxton as a gold-digger. Now that's a cast. Throw in a rumbling reverend and a church lady, and you've got it all.
The family makes a pilgrimage to the South to bury Pop. Spats, tears, laughs, family things happen, but it all has a somewhat happy ending, so they say. And there's also some good gospel singing.
It starts Thursday at Market Square East.
