Little to like in 'Big Mommas'

Near the beginning of Martin Lawrence's latest comedy, the actor gets into a car and begins driving down a straight road. That wouldn't seem too difficult a task. So why are his hands yanking the wheel so wildly that he ought to be careening into traffic?

It's a minor detail, but also a larger sign that the people who made this film expected it to drive itself. As a result, "Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son" crashes and burns within minutes, then spends another hour and a half coasting toward death.

It's the third installment of the "Big Momma's House" franchise, in which Lawrence once again plays the undercover FBI agent Malcolm Turner, whose favorite disguise is an obese senior citizen named Hattie Mae Pierce, or Big Momma. This time his teenage son, Trent (Brandon T. Jackson), has witnessed a murder, so both must don wigs and fat suits. The plot requires them to infiltrate an all-girls school in Atlanta.

You know exactly what you're in for, which includes Trent, dressed as chubby Charmaine, falling for pretty Haley (Jessica Lucas), while Big Momma draws wolf-eyes from a randy security guard (Faizon Love). Tony Curran plays a Russian mobster named Chirkoff - a tattered old joke which, sadly, is among the film's best.

Jackson is likable as Trent, an aspiring rapper with a sensitive side. Lawrence, however, seems sick of this decade-old shtick; the utter thoughtlessness of director John Whitesell ("Big Momma's House 2") feels almost rude. By contrast, Tyler Perry's "Madea" movies have never looked so brilliant.