Are We There Yet?

I've been made fun of for enjoying Are We There Yet which is unfortunate! Despite the flaws this movie has it warms my heart. Ice Cube is great through out and so are the kids. Not for everyone but I love this movie the way it is! Adventure stories are great to me even the unorthodox ones at least occasionally.

Its actually funny and not boring at all! A pleasant movie to watch... nice for kids! I can't understand why people are being so harsh with it...

If your looking for a movie to make your mind work, this isn't it. This is a great non thinking movie that can be enjoyed by the family. I don't think kids have to associate with the kids in this movie, it's more they see how the kids are bad. I'm a big Cube fan so it was a must to buy when it came out. We still watch it and the kids wanna watch it. The first time my kids watched it, they were telling me how bad the kids were and that Cube (not knowing his name, just "that guy") was helping them out and they were being mean to him.

Yes the deer part was a bit fake, but do we need more. The point was toward the boy and Cube bonding. By showing Cube step up and act like a father figure, trying to get the boy to not be afraid and feed the deer was much more an impact then Cube fighting a fake deer.

Overall I would say Rent it, watch it, and enjoy it.

Nick (Ice Cube) is a born "playah," who takes on a arduous task to convince divorced Suzanne (Nia Long) to go out with him. Since she's stuck working in Vancouver and misses her kids, he agrees to drive them up from Portland, but if he thinks her kids are going to let him mack on their mom without a fight, he has another thing coming.

The premise held some potential to be good but the film turned out to be average at best. The jokes are just too mean spirited to be funny and most of the funny jokes were used in the trailer. The jokes are mean spirited because the kids in the film are pretty vicious. They attack Nick because they don't want any guy getting close to their mom. They want their parents back together. I understand that the kids will hate Nick but some of the stuff they do to him is so over the top and unnecessary. I felt sorry for Ice Cube because he was pretty much killed from all the stuff that happened to him.

The acting is okay, nothing special. Ice Cube gives a good performance and he's a pretty good sport for letting all that stuff happen to him. Nia Long was just "meh", nothing special at all. She doesn't get a lot of screen time though. Aleisha Allen and Philip Bolden both give good performances as really annoying kids. The former was the worst of the two and I hope she doesn't pursue a singing career. Jay Mohr is in the movie for about ten minutes despite being mentioned in the previews.

Despite all this violence happening to Nick, the film is actually kind of dull. However, since the movie is only 90 minutes long, it isn't too much of a punishment to sit through. Brian Levant directs and he does an okay job. Usually, his family films bore and annoy me but this one is better than most of his movies. Another problem with the movie is that it's not very original. The opening scene is stolen from Home Alone and the entire film is full of clichés. As a family film, the kids should enjoy it while adults will most likely be asleep or annoyed. There were a few laughs just not enough for the film to expand its audience. Is Are we there yet? the worst movie of the year? No, out of all the films I have seen that {dis} honor would go to The Wedding Date. In the end, this is a nice rental for the kids to watch but everyone else should skip it. Rating 5/10

The more I study film ideas, the more I'm amazed at how some ideas continue to live.

Take the notion of humorous cruelty. Were the Stooges the first to build a franchise around this? In modern times, it is the "Home Alone" franchise where we are given an excuse for accepting the cruelties because the hurter is a clever but innocent child and the hurtees are stereotypical bad guys.

Here the idea tries a new incarnation. Lest there be any mistake about the source, the movie actually starts in the "old" Home Alone mode with our (anonymous) victim encountering tripwires that trigger child-made traps of household goods and toys.

Then it shifts into the new mode. In this edition, some of the tricks are intended and some are not. The victim is a new kind of shiftless: a black man actually trying to be "ghetto." The story is supposed to smoothly morph in a sort of "What About Bob" way from pain to rewarding relationship. The turning point is also stereotypical: the treasured black dad has abandoned his family and the beleaguered suitor is revealed to be someone to whom that also happened.

I think humor about race, especially racial stereotypes, is fair game. How better to puncture racism? But its got to be funny doesn't it?

This picture turns out to be what it starts to be about: a way of torturing a black dude who manages a slick appearance of the ghetto (we're talking about the guy who calls himself Ice Cube here, not his character) and tries to put himself where he doesn't belong. Poignant maybe, but neither funny nor endearing.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.