Madea dispenses her unique form of holiday spirit on rural town when she's coaxed into helping a friend pay her daughter a surprise visit in the country for Christmas.
Larry the Cable Guy and Madea are an oddly perfect pairing. They're both comedians in drag - Larry just gets to wear pants
– Amy Nicholson,
L.A. Weekly,
16 Dec 2013
rotten:
The same slapdash, lightweight effort as Madea in any other season, with a few Yuletide flourishes.
– Mark Olsen,
Los Angeles Times,
16 Dec 2013
rotten:
Slapdash, with dialogue and plot points that were cliches in Dickens' era, the pic sends up, then reaffirms, all the values the media sell us each holiday: compassion, forgiveness, tolerance.
– Tirdad Derakhshani,
Philadelphia Inquirer,
16 Dec 2013
rotten:
The humor seems sour and perfunctory from the start.
– Peter Keough,
Boston Globe,
16 Dec 2013
fresh:
You can see, and hear, the clanking of his melodramatic machinery - the gears and pulleys of emotion - but by the time the movie is over, you've been wedged into those gears; they have you.