They stopped caring
It’s sad how badly the “House Party” movies went from being about smart, independent black youth to just a rushed, scattershot product continued on just to make more money. There was a charisma to Kid n’ Play as performers that sadly gets lost in the hodgepodge that is these two sequels.
They again play themselves. The premise this time is that Kid is about to be married and Play is throwing him a bachelor party. Along the way Kid and the fiancee both question whether they are even ready for marriage but since we barely get to know the girl he’s dating, it’s hard to care about. What would make more sense is if he wound up with Sydney (Tisha Campbell), the girl he had obvious chemistry with in the first film. Though here she’s reduced to a cameo role, more than likely because Campbell had moved on to better things.
“House Party 3” doesn’t care about character so much as the parade of characters. Comedians and musical acts come in and out- Bernie Mac, Chris Tucker, TLC, Immature, Gilbert Gottfried and a host of others all try to inject some life into this thing, the only one being in any way successful is Mac, who could shout the phone book (which probably has better jokes than this movie) and be funny.
The screenplay from Takashi Bufford and director Eric Meza make things so gross and unpleasant that they might as well be taking black cinema back to the stone age again. Their go-to is an over-reliance on tired sexual innuendo gags, mostly said by obnoxious ragamuffins Immature, a rap group done no favors here. They also make caricatures out of senile old women, turn to disgusting gags like a character eating toe jam, and a dinner party scene which turns into a broad shouting match and ends with everyone either pulling guns or knives is pretty much the nadir of the whole series.
It takes a terribly long time to actually get to the house parties, plural this time as there are 3- and there is surprisingly a comic premise that might have worked here all concerning comic mix-ups, if only the screenplay were able to take it further. Unfortunately this is a movie stuck very much in first gear, and with all the commotion and characters coming in and out, it’s no surprise that Kid n’ Play’s presence in this movie feels so diminished.
The first movie’s success hinged primarily on black audiences deserving better. By the third, it’s like no one cared anymore.