Death at a Funeral (2010) R

Let me start out by saying 2007's Death at a Funeral (directed by Frank Oz) is a much better film. Unfortunately, there are only a few differences between the two films. This version is directed by Neil LaBute (Lakeville Terrace) and is written by Dean Craig, who also wrote the original Funeral. An all-star cast helps this ship from sinking.

It stars Chris Rock (I Think I Love My Wife) as Aaron. Aaron's wife Michelle, is played by Regina Hall (Scary Movie 2). His successful brother Ryan, is played by Martin Lawrence (Blue Streak). Then there's their mother (Loretta Devine), their uncle Russell (Danny Glover), their cousins Elaine (Zoe Saldana) and Jeff (Columbus Short), and their family friends Norman (Tracy Morgan) and Derek (Luke Wilson). Also in the mix is Keith David (There's Something About Mary), Kevin Hart (Scary Movie 3), and James Marsden (The Box) as Oscar, Elaine's fiance.

The film starts out with Brian's (Hart) funeral service delivering a casket to Aaron's house. The body is not Aaron's father, but a deceased Asian man. A funny scene, but you can already tell that this film is basically going to be a replica of the original. The language is much worse in this version, which became apparent early on with a few F-bombs. From there, we get introduced to the cast as they all arrive to the funeral. There's a lot of tension between the two brothers (Rock and Lawrence). Everyone wants Ryan, the writer in the family, to do the eulogy. But they all get disappointed to hear that Aaron will be doing it. And they don't mind rubbing it into his face. There's a lot of family drama beforehand. Elaine accidentally gives Oscar one of Jeff's acid pills. He begins hallucinating and thinks he sees the coffin move. He knocks the coffin down and the body goes flailing onto the floor. This shocking moment puts the funeral service on hold.

A strange little person, named Frank (Peter Dinklage), pulls Aaron aside to tell him that he was his dad's secret lover. He tries to blackmail him. He wants 30 thousand dollars or he will display photos of the two together, to his mother. Aaron informs Ryan about it, and they end up gaging and tying Frank. They get help from Norman, Jeff, and Michelle. Norman finds Jeff's acid pills and feeds five of them to Frank. Talk about a bad trip. While trying to come up with a game plan, Frank falls off the couch and cracks his head on a table and appears dead. Meanwhile, Oscar locks himself in the bathroom upstairs and strips naked. He climbs onto the roof and puts on a show for everyone to see. Can Aaron and Ryan get themselves out of this pickle? When will Oscar stop tripping?

There's a lot of other stuff going on in this film, but I'm not going to ruin anything. There are plenty of good performances to check out here. Most notably from Rock, Saldana, Glover, Hart, Marsden, and Morgan. There is some really good back-and-fourth dialogue from Morgan and Glover, as well as Saldana and Marsden. I'm not exactly sure why they decided to do a remake so soon. Death at a Funeral basically just hit shelves and boom, trailers for this film were already out. Half the film is a word-for-word ripoff. But I thoroughly enjoyed the original film and this version is still funny (just not as funny). It's basically a black version of the 2007 film. If you enjoyed the original, you should still find this one enjoyable. I'm just glad Tyler Perry didn't have a hand in it.
C+