Not Very (ap)plausible

The movie is a sloppy exercise that attempts to be a touching portrait of a troubled black family that comes together for the funeral of their not-so-beloved patriarch. The family members try to make all their problems float away through conversation and prayer.

Funeral humor is tough, but not impossible to pull off - look at "Four Weddings and a Funeral" as a successful example - and "Kingdom Come" does a solid job squeezing all the laughs it can out of a morbid scenario.

The humor is more of a credit to the talented cast than the somewhat lame material. L.L. Cool J, Jada Pinkett Smith, Loretta Devine and Anthony Anderson all give their roles a solid push. Whoopi Goldberg, who looks constantly bored as the deceased's widow, is the only cast member who holds the film back.

Anderson, who was so funny he nearly stole the show in "Exit Wounds," keeps his momentum going in the role of Junior, a man who is bad with money and even worse at covering up his extramarital affairs.

"Kingdom Come" is mostly entertaining, but slips and falls on its head because it fails to make us care. There are too many characters running around the screen at any given moment, competing against one another for our attention.

We don't get to spend enough time with any characters to care about what happens to them.

Even if we did care about the characters' fates, we still wouldn't need to watch the formulaic film because a third of the way into it, it's obvious that all the protagonists will have their life-shaking problems neatly tucked away within the hour.

A film like "Kingdom Come" needs to be real, and a typical family reunion does not solve all family members' problems within 93 minutes.

If we're to believe the contrived logic of "Kingdom Come," we'll need to accept the following:

* If you commit adultery, your wife will stay mad at you for a day or so, then suddenly forgive you and forget all about it.

* Years of vicious sibling rivalry can be mended with a simple conversation.

* A five-minute skimming of the Bible will transform a womanizing thug into a choir boy.

Granted, most movies - even the good ones - require viewers to stretch their imaginations a little bit. But "Kingdom Come" jams so many implausible spoonfuls of sugar down your throat, it might make you gag.