Sextuplets (2019)
- Corey Bulloch
- Aug 21, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 16, 2019
★
Father-to-be Alan is shocked to learn that he was born a sextuplet. With his newfound brother Russell riding shotgun, the duo sets out on a hilarious journey to reunite with their remaining long-lost siblings.
Classification: 12
At one point during his soul searching road trip to find his long lost siblings, Marlon Wayans's central character of Alan finds himself finding kinship with his sextuplet brother Russell also played by Wayans by singing theme tunes to old television shows. After a random rendition of the tune from Different Strokes, Alan begins to hum the first few bars of the famous M*A*S*H theme and while "Suicide is Painless" the experience of watching Netflix's Sextuplets is definitely not. A horrid throwback of comedic stylings as Marlon Wayans invades the screen with a series of offensive caricatures which creates humour from outdated racial stereotypes, sexism and in a few cases ableism. No amount of fat suits, prosthetics or stupid voices can disguise Sextuplets from what it really is; a shallow, artistically bankrupt paycheck for Wayans as Netflix continues to sink their money into any project that comes their way, no matter the quality.
Obviously taking unwanted inspiration from Eddie Murphy comedies Norbit and The Nutty Professor, the joke of the film is that Marlon Wayans is playing a variety of characters and nothing else. Tacking together a slim story about family to give the appearance that this collection of images and audio could be considered a movie. Long swaths of the film are just Wayans yelling at himself or referencing old television shows, it's bizarre how the film relies on these references for comedy throughout but it just feels bizarre that this film actually exists. Wayans and director Michael Tiddes clearly want to replicate the success of a comedy trope that hasn't been popular for perhaps twenty years and is only referenced mostly for mocking those who still use it. Sextuplets is just out of place and irrelevant from a creative standpoint which makes the terrible comedy and clichés all the more sufferable for the audience.
Marlon Wayans is likeable as main character Alan, he has a natural charisma that seems to do him well, especially when it comes to bankrolling his terrible comedy films. His other six characters, however, range from distasteful to outright prejudiced as Sextuplets really scrapes the bottom of the barrel of comedy for the most cynical and depraved jokes. Wayans characters of Dawn, Russell, and Ethan cater to the lowest common denominator of comedy as almost every jokes involving them centres around their size, their intelligence or digging their own grave with another abhorrent stereotype. Tiddes and Wayans have no respect for their audience as their film make light of all types of issues and just delivers scene after scene of lazy writing and lazier filmmaking.
Except for a few choice scenes that merely stand out just by being different from the majority, Sextuplets has little to no interesting filmmaking going for it. Its not a film interested in telling a story, just a comedian doing bad jokes, it puts all of its chips on the wrong bet and suffers deeply for it as its few nuggets of potential is squandered. Bresha Webb as Alan's wife Marie is fun against Wayans's characters of Alan and Ethan making the Ethan character far more enjoyable compared to the rest of the sextuplet characters. It doesn't matter however because its payoffs are trivial, lacking any sense of satisfying storytelling and just leaves the audience feeling they wasted a good ninety minutes of their life.
Director: #MichaelTiddes
Release Date: August 16th 2019
Available exclusively on Netflix.
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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