Netflix's Movie Review: 'Sextuplets'

The word "sextuplets" means six babies are all born during the same delivery. Sextuplets, the Netflix movie, was released on Friday, August 16, 2019.

The main character is comedian Marlon Wayans who does a superb job playing all six siblings. Alan doesn't know his biological family because he was adopted. Now that he is expecting his own baby in a few days, he wants to find his family. When he goes on a road trip to find his relatives, he discovers that he is one of six siblings.

Marlon Wayans' Six Roles

When viewers see Alan's siblings for the first time, they are amazed that most of them don't look like him at all. Wayans portrays all of them in different physical appearances and mannerisms.

1. Alan goes on a road trip to find his siblings.
2. Alan first locates Russell, an overweight man who eats cereal morning, noon and night. Wayans wears a full prosthetic as Russell.
3. Then Alan meets his only sister Dawn who is in jail with an attitude. Alan pays $10,000 to bail her out. She joins Alan and Russell on the road trip to find the other siblings.
4. Brother Ethan dresses and talks like a 1970s pimp with gold teeth cap and processed hair. Even with that description, he looks the most like Alan.
5. Jasper looks similar to Alan, but his complexion is lighter, and hehas red hair.
6. Baby Pete isfound in the hospital because he has a case of infantile paralysis and needs a kidney, which he gets from Alan.

How Wayans Played All Six Roles

It is amazing how producers and directors made it possible for one person to play multiple roles at the same time during a scene. The film has been described as "a comedy stacked with six helpings of Marlon Wayans." So, how did Wayans take on the roles of all the main characters?

Director Michael Tiddes explains how it was done. First of all, he said Wayans was on the set long hours every day. He was in the makeup chair usually from 2 AM to 9 AM. Then he would work from 12 to 15 hours, performing his part for each sibling. Wayans had to remember his own lines as Alan as well as the scripts of his five siblings. It would take three days to complete just one scene with the multiple characters. The process continued that way during the filming of the entire movie. Of course, the showrunners used technology to put the scenes together that viewers see when they watch Sextuplets.

Not Wayans' First Multiple Roles

It is not unusual for actors to play multiple roles in one movie. Patty Duke played herself and her identical cousin Cathy on The Patty Duke Show from 1963 to 1966. Tyler Perry does it all the time. He has played at least 27 different characters, but they are not all in the same film. He plays Madea in many of his plays, movies, and television shows and other characters depending on his project.

Eddie Murphy is one of the most well-known comedians who is talented at playing multiple roles. He played more than one character in Coming to America and Norbit. He took on seven different roles in the 1996 film The Nutty Professor.

Even though Wayans performed one character less than Murphy, many of Wayans' characters were often in the same scene. Murphy's characters weren’t all in the same scene at the same time. Whether there are six or seven characters played by one actor, everyone does a fantastic job.

This is not the first Netflix film where Wayans had more than one role. He starred in White Chicks when he took on a role of one of the young white chicks and Little Man where his character was a very small adult who posed as a baby. This is the first time Wayans has taken on six roles at the same time in the same film. Sextuplets is certainly a Netflix movie worth watching.