“Hi, I’m Kardashian. You may remember me from my fake marriage and sex tape. I’m here to deliver an important morality tale.”

If you’re not familiar with our Plot Recreated with Reviews feature, it works like this: we take a movie we haven’t seen and try to recreate the entire story using summaries from the reviews. The idea is to use only summary quotes (no analysis!), so that the only editorializing comes by way of delicious passive-aggression. We haven’t done one in a while, because it requires a movie with a plot that’s sort of funny in its own right. Juicy melodrama tends to work the best. And I do believe Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (yes, that is the full title) fits that bill. Here’s the IMDB synopsis:

An ambitious married woman’s temptation by a handsome billionaire leads to betrayal, recklessness, and forever alters the course of her life.

I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for any description that includes the phrase “handsome billionaire.” Okay, let’s do this. And remember, this film didn’t screen for critics, so you have to assume that most of these critics saw it on their own dime.

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The story is framed by a tale that a couples therapist imparts to a cheating wife. It concerns Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Brice (Lance Gross), childhood friends in a small, golden-sepia Southern town who are destined for matrimony**, flirting against the wishes of Judith’s scripture-quoting battle-ax mother (Ella Joyce).*

Brice is happy being a humble pharmacist*, while Judith wants to be a marriage counselor and ends up becoming the in-house therapist at a high-class, millionaire matchmaking service***, a high-end operation that Judith can’t stand, despite only working there for less than a month****.

She locks horns with a bitchy, materialistic co-worker (Kim Kardashian essentially playing Kim Kardashian) and her cartoonishly cougar-ish boss, Janice (Vanessa Williams, using a broad French accent)*. Kim Kardashian’s character exists mostly to criticize the wardrobe of Judith *****, uttering bon mots like, “That’s not make-up, that’s make-down.”******

Janice introduces Judith to Harley (Robbie Jones)**, a sort of black Thomas Crown******, a dapper social-media magnate Janice covets as an investor,** and the two begin working with each other on a computer program that matches romantic compatibility****.

Harley spends the first hour of the film gazing lustfully and soulfully at Judith while purring barely concealed come-ons that manage to convey, “I want to have sex with you despite your marriage and strong Christian virtues.”****** Judith, bored by the dutiful, spectacled Brice and feeling professionally stalled, is easy prey for Harley’s seductions.**

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Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (official title: “Tyler Perry’s Temptation“), written by Tyler Perry, directed by Tyler Perry, and produced by the Tyler Perry Company, scored another hit for Tyler Perry this weekend, earning $22 million, to become Tyler Perry’s ninth movie to debut above $20 million (only Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis have had as many). And do you know who wasted no time discussing the success of Tyler Perry? You guessed it, Tyler Perry.

Yes, I do subscribe to his newsletter. The extended metaphor about his groundwater (“sometimes Jesus wants you to keep digging”) a few months back was more than enough to convince me.

I’ve been hanging out all weekend on my message board and on Facebook to see what you thought and wow!  Some of the most powerful things I have ever read are on my message board. Thank you for opening up your lives and sharing your stories – stories of betrayal and of your own temptation, but most of all thank you for letting me know that this movie gave you hope or a new outlook, which is what it’s all about for me. There were several testimonials of how this movie has spoken to marriages. One person wrote, “Thank you for this film, now I have closure.”  Several of you said that I must have been peeking in your window because this movie was too close to home. Another lady said that she left feeling hopeful, and another couple went home talking about how this movie stopped both of them from making the wrong decision. You have no idea how this moves me.

I can’t stop reading the sentence Some of the most powerful things I have ever read are on my message board. I mean, it should come as no surprise that a guy who puts his own name in front of the titles of his movies would be his own biggest fan, but even for Tyler Perry, that is a stunning assertion. Here’s my imagined conversation:

JAMES LIPTON: So, Tyler Perry, you read a lot. What would you say is the most powerful thing you’ve ever read?

TYLER PERRY: Good question, James. I’d say the most powerful things I’ve ever read are the entries on the website I set up specifically for people to praise me. I love the Bible, but it doesn’t hold a candle to people telling me how important I am.

Let this be a lesson to all the aspiring media magnates out there: there’s no such thing as too much self-mythologizing.

As we all know, 2012 was the year C-Tates broke, with the hardest twerkin man in show business scoring huge hits with The Vow ($196 million worldwide), 21 Jump Street ($202 million), and Magic Mike ($167 million). Who would’ve thought 21 Jump Street would get a sequel? People liked him so much that Paramount pushed the release of GI Joe: Retaliation back almost a year just five weeks before its originally-scheduled opening. Well guess what? It made $41.2 million over the weekend and Paramount has already ordered the sequel. He is risen.

The G.I. Joe sequel grossed an estimated $41.2 million this weekend, which ranks as the second-highest Easter debut ever behind 2010′s Clash of the Titans ($61.2 million). Including Thursday, the movie has earned $51.7 million; that’s a bit below G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra‘s $54.7 million three-day start in August 2009. For its three major stars, this is also a potent opening: it ranks third-highest for Channing Tatum, second-highest for The Rock, and it’s remarkably the top debut ever for a Bruce Willis movie.

I don’t what part of that last sentence is more incredible, that Bruce Willis’s highest-opening movie is GI Joe 2, or that Channing Tatum already has two higher-opening movies than Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis! That’s incredible. He’s been a movie star since C-Tates was sagging his diapers.

Elsewhere, Tyler Perry continued to print money with Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, starring Kim Kardashian, which earned $22.3 million. Can you believe that’s not a joke? I’m still not convinced.

It’s also Perry’s ninth movie ever to open over $20 million; the only two other directors who have that many $20 million debuts are Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. [BoxOfficeMojo]

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Here’s the poster for Tyler Perry’s latest, Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (oh, man, that title). With the snake circling the lady’s face shaped like an apple, you almost get the feeling there’s going to be some religious overtones to this one, am I right? Or maybe I’m just reading too much into this one. I can do that sometimes, where I see Biblical imagery in something totally innocuous, like a snake circling an apple on a red background with TEMPTATION in giant letters below it.

By the way, I’d love to be a marriage counselor in a Tyler Perry movie. That would be the easiest job in the world. “Hmm, let’s see… so you’re currently trapped in a loveless marriage in which your husband is a cold, distant workaholic who beats you and belittles you in front of the children, and you’re wondering if you should leave him for the attractive, independently wealthy widower with six-pack abs who sends you flowers every day and coaches softball for dyslexic kids? ….You know, I’m gonna be honest, this doesn’t seem like much of a conflict.”

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