Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 13-22 (2007)

I once watched the entire saga of Trapped in the Closet on IFC. It was a true train wreck in that it was awful but somehow I could not stop watching. The story was so complicated and R. Kelly was so pretentious that I simply could not make sense of or care about what happened. If the focus was supposed to be on the tangled sexual relationships of the characters, what was that whole business with the mobsters and the train doing in the film? I honestly hoped that someone would get killed since I thought that it might help end this stupid thing. I have no idea how anyone could actually find this mess genuinely entertaining and not just as a "so-bad-it's-good" alternative classic. In conclusion, it's a bad train wreck that you are better off avoiding if possible.

I don't care much for rap -hip/hop music, but i caught this on cable and was Happily Surprised. Every chapter has a surprise ending to it. It's not pretentious and there are several funny parts. The singing and lyrics are amazing. Also i thought that R.Kelly was a really great actor, even a great comedic actor. Several comedians nowadays try to play multiple characters and it ends up coming off like a over the top characterization of real people that isn't funny. I think R. Kelly did a great job of playing different characters without making them so ridiculous it was unbelievable. The characters were believable with just enough parody to make them endearing.

Where the first series was a noble misadventure, the second set is treacherous. Every possible cliché, trope and familiar banality is recycled in pursuit of simply filling out another series so that R Kelly finally has a reason to wear a selection of suits and look cool and in control. Any pretence of a through dramatic line is abandoned as if the script were being prepared in situ by children with foul mouths and limited or crippled imagination. Even the earlier rough sense of rigour or formality with respect to singing the script crumbles away.One might suspect that if R Kelly had managed to persuade the money men to OK the first series, the unexpectedly half-positive critical response forced their collective, calculating hand to demand a second where there was - artistically speaking - none. Worse than wallpaper.

When this DVD was coming out, I couldn't wait to get it. I've been listening to R. Kelly music since I can remember and have followed some of his advice on women. (it worked too.) Now I really don't care about his porno and all that legal bs, all I know is that this man can really make a song about anything and still make it a hit. I think people call that talent. Anyways, I buy the DVD, and I sit with my wife to watch it, and I must admit I felt like the movie went nowhere.I mean, the characters were hysterical and I wondered where the hell he came up with some of this stuff, but I felt he was just showing the different characters he can play so some producer would notice and start putting him in movies. Honestly, he was just showcasing his talents instead of moving forward with the story. The first chapters were good, and it was a movie that I could watch over and over but this second one felt hollow.If R. Kelly wants to go out with a bang with this, he should just go with the first characters he had and just tell their story instead of these other characters that didn't need to be in the movie. That's just my opinion and I am rating this kinda because I am an R. Kelly fan through thick and thin and I'm a little bias.