Whoopi Goldberg in "Kingdom Come."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film a: Stars: Whoopi Goldberg and LL Cool J Director: Doug McHenry Rated: PG, with rough language and sensuality Length: 94 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Susan Stark
Gannett News Service

(April 11, 2000) -- In a small Southern town on a sultry summer morning, an elderly man keels over at the breakfast table. His funeral brings together a sizeable family for the usual exercises in envy, resentment, disappointment, anger and, finally, reconciliation.

Kingdom Come, with a pleasing score by gospel superstar Kirk Franklin, treats their eventful reunion as comedy. The picture's latent sentimental streak becomes a bold, preposterous flourish at film's end.

For the most part, Kingdom Come's cast far outshines its mundane material. Whoopi Goldberg stands front and center as the grounded, clear-thinking widow. She's a woman who (seriously) wants "Mean and Surly" carved on her late husband's headstone. Her oldest son, played by rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J, argues for Rest in Peace and gets his way.

The brief exchange between mother and son on this subject is about the only bit of dialogue in the picture delivered in normal speaking tones. Both Goldberg and LL Cool J actually manage to create shaded, multi-dimensional, sympathetic characters. Generally, though, there's just a whole lot of shouting going on.

Jada Pinkett Smith, married to Goldberg's younger son (Anthony Anderson) and the mother of their three mischievous children, gets first prize for sheer volume. Mouthy and full of herself, Pinkett here seems to have concluded that being noisy is the same as being funny. Loretta Devine, as the deceased man's Bible-thumping sister, seconds Smith's decibel level.

Gorgeous Vivica A. Fox, as LL Cool J's elegant wife, and Cedric "The Entertainer," as the preacher who must eulogize a man he hardly knew, round out the key cast members. Clearly, there's plenty of talent in front of the play-turned-movie by David Dean Bottrell and Jessie Jones.

Just as clearly, there's not much even this gifted cast can do with the script. It's the kind of shrill sitcom about family life that has been a TV staple for years.

Kingdom Come's idea of a big climactic gag? Send the preacher to a newly opened Mexican restaurant up the road the evening before the funeral, then offer extended visual and aural documentation of his intestinal distress in the pulpit.

That tells most folks all they want or need to know about the movie.