‘Sextuplets’
Directed by Michael Tiddes
Starring Marlon Wayans, Bresha Webb, Michael Ian Black
Rated TV-14
Streaming on Netflix
The odds of having sextuplets are estimated at one in 4.7 billion.
The odds of having a laugh riot during “Sextuplets,” now on Netflix, are probably not quite that slim. Then again …
If your idea of a good time is watching Marlon Wayans play not just one lame, stereotypical role but more than a half-dozen of them in a series of unfunny situations, have at it.
Wayans is Alan, who’s five weeks away from becoming a first-time daddy with no-nonsense wife Marie (Bresha Webb).
In the run-up to baby’s arrival, Alan, a foster-homes kid, discovers his birth mother’s name and address and hits the road for a surprise reunion. That’s the plan, anyway.
Instead, he meets morbidly obese, cereal- and TV-obsessed Russell, a brother he never knew about. And there are four more siblings where Russell came from.
We meet them and a parade of prosthetics, tooth bling and wigs one-by-one: Dawn, an exotic dancer; sickly but slick Baby Pete; sketchy, gun-packing Jaspar; and shady Ethan, who plays the lookalike card and impersonates Alan during encounters with Marie as well as his boss (Molly Shannon).
Director Michael Tiddes, who helmed Wayans’ “White Chicks” and “Little Man,” ignores the fact that what makes comedy, even broad farce, funny is that it’s based in some sort of reality and logic.
“Sextuplets” never rings true — so there are no stakes, whether Alan is charged by an angry bull or gets hoodwinked into donating a kidney.
Yep, all that goes down, thanks to a trio of writers — Wayans, Mike Glock and Rick Alvarez — who remind that three isn’t always a charm.
Late in the game the movie seeks to serve up a message about being present: “I got so caught up meeting my new family I stopped appreciating the one I have here,” Alan tells Marie. Too little, too late.
The whole gimmick of the flick is about watching Wayans mug in multiple roles a la Eddie Murphy in “The Nutty Professor.” Unfortunately, more is less in this labored delivery.
