First Sunday.

"In a way, First Sunday is part of a tradition of African-American cinema that goes back to Oscar Micheaux and Spencer Williams in the 1930s and 40s; the new film's ambivalent heroes who see the light, obvious villain and bawdy humor were very much part of the playbook for those cinema pioneers," writes Alonso Duralde at MSNBC. "Unfortunately, the two-dimensional melodrama and hit-you-over-the-head messaging from those old movies (as well as from early talkies by low-budget filmmakers of all races) remains very much in evidence as well."

"Ice Cube, not exactly a mirthful performer, requires an antic sidekick, and he has a pretty good one here in Tracy Morgan," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "First Sunday sometimes feels more like a script read-through than like an actual movie, but its warmth is likely to carry you through the stretches of cliché and tedium."

Updated through 1/17.

"Leaving aside the actual quality of the work, the peculiar career trajectory of Ice Cube - from gangsta rapper to indie-film icon to action hero wannabe to family-comedy superstar - is surely one of the most fascinating cultural phenomena of our time," suggests Bilge Ebiri in Nerve.

"The movie is designed to be uplifting and inspirational, but everything about it is tired and listless," writes Salon's Stephanie Zacharek. "It doesn't so much make you feel the spirit as drain it out of you."

"At first, the movie is over-anxious - trying too hard to squeeze out the laughs, pump up the soundtrack, ingratiate itself with the audience - and the straining is abrasive," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. "But once [director David E] Talbert gets distracted by keeping the plot clunking along, the comedy eases into relaxed sideline banter."

"The change in direction that First Sunday takes from gritty and funny to smarmy and sanctimonious is harrowing enough to induce sensibility whiplash," writes Bruce Bennett in the New York Sun.

For the New York Observer's Sara Vilkomerson, this is "a movie that wants to be a screwball comedy, a caper and a feel-good inspirational tale all at once but feels fairly predictable (but not in a comforting rom-com way) and, more often than not, is not so funny."

At Slant, Nick Schager finds this to be a "generally awful replication of [Tyler] Perry's typical blend of heartwarming melodrama and broad, stereotype-mining humor."

"First Sunday pits the street against the church, but somehow, affable mediocrity wins the day," writes Nathan Rabin at the AV Club.

Chris Lee talks with Tracy Morgan for the Los Angeles Times.

Patrick Walsh talks with Talbert for Cinematical.

Update, 1/17: "First Sunday isn't about moral ignorance or how scandalous ghetto thugs can be; instead, Talbert observes the difficulty of social communion," writes Armond White in the New York Press. This doesn't make it "a great movie (it surely is not that; far from the class of Sounder or Akeelah and the Bee), but it is a rare film that recognizes complex facts of social existence."

Posted by dwhudson at January 11, 2008 11:04 AM