Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black Review: Forgettable, Raunchy Thriller is Goofy

Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black Review | Leisurebyte

Director: Tyler Perry

Date Created: 2024-10-24 12:30

Editor's Rating:
2

In Netflix’s Beauty in Black, two women with vastly different lives come across one another in such a way that it entangles their lives in the most surprising way possible. While Kimmie is struggling to make ends meet as an exotic dancer, Mallory is running a successful business and when their paths cross, things take a very dark turn.

The 16-episode series will be released in two parts. Part 1 has 8 episodes, each with a runtime of around 45 minutes.

Beauty in Black Review

The word evil is thrown around a lot in Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black, a title that is derived from a multi-million dollar beauty company that apparently gives people cancer. Almost everyone in the series is evil, comically so sometimes, and will push you into a lull after a while as it goes over the same thing over and over again. There’s a lot of swearing, a lot of gratuitous sex sequences that are completely unnecessary and the series takes far too long to get to the point. At 45 minutes per episode, it’s a bit too long to find entertaining after a while.

Throwing light on the duplicitousness of the rich and how everyone with an ounce of power to wield can’t help but destroy your life, the series focuses on a lot of things. While Mallory and Kimmie’s lives eventually cross, what happens before it is just so in-your-face that you can’t help but cringe a little after a while. There’s an important discussion to be had here about the dangers of prostitution and how hard some people have to work to simply survive, along with showcasing that some people are just devoid of any sympathy for others but the show hardly has any nuance and goes out of its way to break down every little thing that it shows and does it multiple times over.

There are a ton of relationships to be explored in the series and the internal issues between every character introduced makes for delicious television – it’s full of drama and messy as heck. I think if the series is approached with the mindset of enjoying mindless entertainment, there is a ton of merit to it. Full of swears and messy drama, it’s thoroughly entertaining as a one-time, forgettable watch. The series makes you second-guess your life at every point as everyone seems to be having some sort of secret relationship with everyone else. It’s so blatantly silly that you can’t help but watch and see what silliness awaits you next.

The more I watched this show, I more I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of Disney-villain-level people these are. I don’t know whether uber-rich people behave like this but whatever it is, it’s thoroughly entertaining. The situations are insane but the story isn’t really interested in breaking down their nuances. Of course, it’s a soap opera-esq show so I guess some amount of subversion of expectations is necessary in such a case. The series also features some well-known faces, especially in Perry’s shows and movies. The principal cast is great and sells their characters, however goofy they are, quite well. I can’t say the same about the extended cast, but most don’t stay long enough to make too much of an impact.

I think one of the biggest problems I had with the series is that none of the characters are remotely likeable. As mentioned above, either they are Disney villains or just make the worst possible decisions and end up worse off. No one is happy and everyone is constantly snapping at each other. I find that there needs to be at least one character who has something going for them to make us root for them, but this series is just so goofy that it makes villains of them all while making things more and more obtuse.

Final Thoughts

I think there’s merit to some of the characters and some situations in Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black. However, the series doesn’t go deep enough into the story or the characters to make an impact. It’s full of swearing and nudity that are unnecessary and add nothing to the story. Overall, I think it’s good, forgettable entertainment, but nothing more than that.

Also Read: This is the Zodiac Speaking Review: Fresh Take on a Gruesome Old Tale