JUMPING THE BROOMRating: PG-13 for adult content and strong language.Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes.
The pleasant but insubstantial comedy “Jumping the Broom” – produced by Dallas-based preacher T.D. Jakes, is a culture-clash comedy about two black families squaring off during a weekend-long wedding on Martha’s Vineyard.
Sabrina (Paula Patton) is the well-to-do bride, whose uptight mother (Angela Bassett) barks orders at her household staff and occasionally lapses into highfalutin French. Jason (Laz Alonso) is the groom, an investment banker from a working-class Brooklyn family. His mother (Loretta Devine) is a postal worker, overprotective and easily slighted, determined that the wedding be a traditional black one.
Both families, of course, have secrets that are revealed in melodramatic, not-entirely-convincing fashion. Inevitably, the bonds between Sabrina and Jason are tested, only to be finally strengthened.
In other words, you’ve seen this sort of wedding movie many times before. As Bassett and Devine try to out-diva one another, the lovely Patton and the very handsome Alonso recede into the background of their own movie – they’re a Barbie and Ken doll set that the rest of the cast gets to toy with.