Little Review

PG-13: Some Suggestive Content

Universal Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Will Packer Productions

1 Hr and 49 Minutes

Dir: Tina Gordon | Writer: Tracy Oliver, Tina Gordon

Cast: Regina Hall, Issa Rae, Marsai Martin, Mikey Day, Rachel Dratch, Tone Bell

A ruthless tech mogul, Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) receives the chance to relive the life of her younger self (Marsai Martin) at a point in her life when the pressures of adulthood become too much for her to bear after a girl she offended wishes she was little. Jordan receives help from her overworked assistant, April (Issa Rae), to find a way to revert to normal.

Leaping from your TV screen in Black-ish onto the big screen in her first feature film and executive producing project, Marsai Martin proves how naturally funny she is due to her comic timing and energy. She shines throughout and is so entertaining to watch. She has so much sass and charisma that her performance is one of the two major forces of adrenaline this film has in the tank. The other force is Issa Rae, who is also an incredible performer and brings her A-game for this. With this being her first comedy feature, she also exhibits her energy. Some scenes are laugh-out-loud hilarious and it’s mostly due to the dynamic between Marsai Martin and Issa Rae. These are two well-known television performers who make the best of their material and they are funny throughout.

Holy shit, these Will Packer studio comedies are getting worse and so close to reaching Tyler Perry-levels of mediocrity. You could just re-read my entire review of What Men Want because the majority of my criticisms for that film can be applied here. Hell, I’ll go ahead and recycle a sentence because all I have to do is change the film title and a few other words. My major gripe against Little is how much it doesn’t take proper advantage of its enticing premise to do anything new or clever. What the film decides to do instead is aim for the basic sitcom narrative that never feels balanced between its concept and its humor.

Just like in What Men Want (also co-written by Tina Gordon), you have this successful Black woman who is the absolute worst. Jordan is a cold-hearted tech company leader who has the same mindset as Ebenezer Scrooge, but she actually physically abuses her workers. Why? Because she’s bullied and motivated to be a girl boss, but becomes evil in the process. I’ll say this: the best thing about an angry and evil Regina Hall is linking her aggression to her Oscar snub for her amazing performance in Support the Girls. While some of the elements in the beginning are funny, there are unnecessarily racy, bad transphobic jokes that make no sense.

Once Jordan is transformed into a kid the film gets actively worse. As she wakes up and begins her daily routine, Jordan instantly realizes her transformation and is a bit too self-aware. You expect a big shock, yet she shrugs it off as not much of a huge deal. Granted, it's a new spin on a tired trope where the protagonist screams in the mirror because of their reflection, but being self-aware doesn’t deliver the same comedic impact that’s expected. Soon after, she calls her assistant April and explains the predicament to her and provides proof. Then, when a Child Protective Services agent arrives, the two lie about why Jordan isn’t there and this child is home alone. Logistically, Jordan could have showed her the same evidence of her predicament like she did for April literally two scenes prior since the EVIDENCE IS RIGHT THERE! But the movie takes the most flat and braindead routes just so she can be put in school. Since Jordan is this big tech mogul who is put on magazine covers, anyone could have easily looked up Jordan’s childhood pictures on the internet and they would know something shady happened to her.

But, whatever. The film wants you to swallow its large pill to go along with the story. Then, mini Jordan enrolls in middle school and is instantly bullied by kids. Of course, teachers are non-existent and the only one who is (portrayed by Justin Hartley) only exists for a humorous joke. It’s a funny sequence, but Hartley is immediately cut around 3 scenes after his introduction to make way for Jordan befriending this outcast group of kids and helping them out for A GODDAMN TALENT SHOW!

By that point, the film falls off the deep end, into the sea of mediocrity, and stays there. It’s not only disappointing, but at this point it’s just too frustrating. Just because the lead is known from a sitcom doesn’t mean you have to make the feature a sitcom, for Little hits every lazy trope done to death, squandering both the premise and the talents. Tina Gordon has proven to be a great screenwriter, and so has Tracy Oliver, so I’m confused about why this film is so bland. As a matter of fact, it’s obvious which story elements were written by who because some of the frustrations taken from What Men Want are transferred into this. In 2019, it is so unnecessarily trite to force a romance as a primary requirement for a woman’s character arc when the focal point should be the growth of this monster into being a better person and the friendship they share with their underling. It’s not for her to open her heart for a man because she has an edge. That absolutely has no correlation with this concept, yet it’s applied to both Jordan and April. April is a pushover. What’s her arc? Finally getting the gumption to get with her crush, who is also her coworker.

That’s not the kind of empowering message audiences should expect from a story such as this. What Men Want fell short because of the same aspect and it’s integrated here as well.

For a nearly two-hour-long movie, there are only 45 minutes of material and substance present. You can sense it through the story and you feel it through every poorly-structured scene. All the best material are wasted early on with no context to the story. There are funny moments included beyond the ads, but all the great material is in the trailer and, in context with the movie, it’s inconsistent for the story. That spanking scene is literally right before she enrolls in school when it would’ve been more intentionally powerful as the falling out, because you would’ve had enough tension between April and Jordan that all of the reserved aggression for one another would’ve been unleashed there.

I wish the screenplay material wasn't so bland and generic given its concept. It has the same narrative beats as every sitcom-level studio comedy where a talent show is included and essential to the plot and not much passage of time happens in order for Jordan to progress as a character. There’s no real progression of a script as it meanders with its plot and drags out the run time.

You people in Hollywood really need to hire decent editors because between this and Hellboy this week, I’ve grown frustrated with sitting through these choppily-edited movies that attach little to no thread of a story together and continuity is thrown out the window. The jump cuts that prevent any smooth transition between scenes are terrible. The lack of continuity in nearly each scene and some sequences are jarring that you can tell those jokes are made up right on the spot. There is a restaurant scene that just gear-shifts halfway through to a random karaoke scene with no logical explanation and it’s jarring, for it feels so desperate for a laugh, especially with how it’s edited.

At the end of the day, Little is an unevenly bland studio comedy that never packs enough Black Girl Magic to fill a 108-minute runtime and squanders its concept and talented performances with a lazy execution.

Go see Shazam.  

Rating: 2/5 | 43%