TYLER PERRY'S NEW MOVIE I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF HITS THEATER'S TODAY! GO SEE IT!

Like a chef who keeps making the same recipe over and over, Tyler Perry has found his strength and he's sticking to it. Because he alters the ingredients slightly every time, the results range just enough to keep loyal audiences coming back for more. His latest finds the right balance, at least for those who share his salty-sweet tastes.

Perry begins with his most reliable base: a woman in physical and moral peril. This time, she's played by Taraji P. Henson ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") as a soul-sick nightclub singer named April. Since there's usually a Bad Man and a Good Man as well, our villain is angry, abusive Randy (Brian White), who finds himself supplanted by gentle, church-going Sandino (Adam Rodriguez).

Randy stays in April's townhouse when he can get away from home, where his pregnant wife and four children wait. Like April, he wants no part of the domestic life — which becomes a major obstacle when April's teenage niece (Hope Olaide Wilson) and two young nephews (Kwesi Boakye, Frederick Siglar) show up on her doorstep.

Their mother, a crack addict, is dead, and their grandmother has gone missing. Aside from Randy, everyone tells April to step up, including tough-talking matriarch Madea (Perry), who caught the children breaking into her home.

As someone who spends all night drinking and all day sleeping, April is horrified by the prospect of raising three children. But with encouragement from church members (Marvin Winans and Gladys Knight), lessons in love from Sandino, and straight talk from her best friend (Mary J. Blige), April starts to believe she may be strong enough to do the right thing.

Perry deals with serious issues — childhood sexual abuse is a common theme revisited here — but he lightens the tone with a deftness we haven't seen before. The broad melodrama of past films, from "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" to last year's "Madea Goes to Jail," has been tamed to an extent, making for a somewhat richer portrait of young women in trouble.

Allowing April's sardonic wit to mask her pain, Oscar nominee Henson likes the spotlight, and showboats a bit when she can. In contrast, the inexperienced Wilson delivers a restrained and deeply touching portrayal of a teenager coping with devastating circumstances. Rodriguez doesn't make much of his romance-novel hero, but White finds some genuinely startling menace within Randy's clichéd evil.

Perry also spices things up with two of his most reliable fallbacks: music, and Madea. Having packed his cast with singers, he allows them all a moment to shine, with songs that deliver his patented lessons (trust in yourself, trust in others, trust in God).

Meanwhile, all his movies improve when Madea shows up, and this one is no exception. But she doesn't have to carry the film all by herself. While some of his dramas feel drained whenever she leaves the screen, this one has enough spirit to remain engaging even in her absence.