Little Marsai Martin shows big talent in this updated BIG movie, but it just doesn’t hang well together. Director Tina Gordon (Drumline, What Men Want) has packed the film with top talent wearing the coolest clothes, put them in spectacular settings, but created a more a series of sight gags strung together instead of a movie that flows. Some are really funny, and they deal with issues kids and women both face at school and at work. But the film is choppy and uneven.
Martin (TV’s Black-ish) dreamt up the premise when she was just 10. Now she not only stars, but is Executive Producer of the film at the ripe old age of 14 . She says almost 15! Remember when you were a kid and always upped the number? The camera loves Martin and she loves the camera. She is a force to be reckoned with serving up plenty of expression and attitude from behind her signature big glasses playing the mini version of her adult self, played by the gorgeous Regina Hall. Tracy Oliver put the idea into a story and wrote the script which has some clever lines.
Martin becomes the teen version of the slick, selfish and self-centered tech company boss, Jordan (Regina Hall) who drives everybody crazy. She’s drop dead gorgeous, but the ultimate bully. Hall gets to play as mean as they come brow beating her assistant, April. Issa Rae (The Hate U Give) has fun with the part showing incredible patience and frustration under her boss’ outrageous orders. April is a very sympathetic character Rae portrays well. She needs the job and will go through whatever demeaning demands Jordan delivers. Pushing people around is her specialty. She’s even mean to her neighbor’s kid, and in a very offensive way.
At work, Jordan wants her people to come up with a pitch for a new game that will keep their sickeningly sleazy client, Connor, (Mikey Day) from pulling his business. The scene at the pitch meeting where she donks one of her employees on the head, pushes the chair of another so hard she goes flying and then licks the apple a worker is eating then making him take a bite in front of everyone, is pretty disgusting behavior. Hall admitted coming up with those herself. Totally unscripted. Not great examples of how to treat people but some creative improv to prove a point.
Her misbehavior changes after she bullies the kid on the donut truck, who’s into magic and has got a trick or two up her wand. Jordan wakes up swimming in her way too big bed clothes, now that she’s shrunk to face the world as a little teen. Dutiful assistant April is called on to sub for Jordan at work and gleefully picks the glitziest outfit in Jordan’s fashionista closet to take charge f at work. Little describes it as “…lookin’ like Cookie from Empire.”
Martin as Little Jordan continues life as self-indulgent Big Jordan, trying to get special treatment but ends up getting schooled, literally. She’s put in school and finds out, first hand, what it’s like to be bullied. Stereotypes of the cliques at school seem perfunctory in the film. She ends up eating lunch with the nerds in the friend zone, away from the snooty cheerleaders who are holding tryouts for the talent show and even flirts with the cute male teacher as if she’s still an adult. Some of this is cute, but some painful and not well acted.
The scenes between April and Little, especially their antics in the high end restaurant, are fun and show off, not only their relationship in the film, but how comedically talented the actresses are, as they play off each other.
April eventually gets to take advantage of being the boss, not by being mean, but finally able to present her own big idea for an app that she was too scared to tell Big Jordan. Once they all figure out who and how Big Jordan turned into Little, they find the donut girl to try to reverse the spell. Will lessons be learned? Will there be a happy ending?
This is not a great piece of filmmaking. It’s fairly entertaining and gets silly more often than not. But Gordon puts talented actors, Hall, Rae and Martin, in pretty surroundings performing good bits of comedy about issues to think about, whether you’re big or little.
Universal Pictures 1 hour 49 minutes PG-13
