Showing from April 5: Tyler Perry’s Temptation **

Stars: Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Vanessa Williams, Brandy Norwood.
Director: Tyler Perry
Rated: PG-13
Showing: Speciality Theatre. Ring 292-2135 for show times. 
Runtime: 111 minutes
Drama

The thing that made Tyler Perry rich is much in evidence in Tyler Perry’s Temptation. It was called Confessions of a Marriage Counselor when he toured with it on stage.

There’s no Madea here. But the women are beautiful, serious about clothes, makeup, hair and church.

Older women are “Wise Councils,” the name of a female-centric church in the movie. And they typically get all the funny, sometimes profane, always “you-listen-to-me-child” lines.

The men are shirtless, rapacious heels, or sensitive pretty-boy disappointments. That doesn’t matter, as these movies are first and foremost “chick flicks” — sermonettes about relationships, deserving more and eventually getting it.

The women, I mean.

But Temptation is a cautionary tale about wanting what you haven’t got. The marriage counselor Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) at the heart of it is young, gorgeous, in a glamorous job with a high-end D.C. dating service. She married her childhood sweetheart (Lance Gross), who is a serious stiff — looking at goals 10-15 years down the road.

And the Internet tycoon who may invest in the marriage counselor’s business? He (Robbie Jones) has money, confidence and “unsafe sex” written all over it. Meanwhile, the husband might be tempted by a secretive and cowering new cashier (Brandy Norwood) at his pharmacy,

Ella Joyce, as Judith’s preacher-mother, and has the “Madea” role — sassy, testy and all-wise.

Perry clumsily frames this story as a tale a counsellor (Candice Coke) tells a young woman who’s thinking of cheating on her husband. The timing of the comic moments is off, and the film drags and drags before reaching a conclusion anybody can see from a mile off.