Release Date: January 21, 2005
Starring: Ice Cube, Nia Long, Aliesha Allen, Philip Daniel Bolden
Directed by: Brian Levant
Written by: Steven Gary Banks, Claudia Grazioso
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
MPAA Rating: PG (crude humor, violence, language)
It’s sort of impressive when a bad movie lets you know just how bad it will be within the first minute or two, as the atrocious family comedy Are We There Yet? does. The movie opens with a dapper gentlemen with a bouquet of flowers approaching a suburban doorstep and getting bombarded by marbles and glue-filled balloons; the culprits are two children (played by Aleisha Allen and Philip Daniel Bolden) trying to scare away yet another man who’s trying to date their single mother. The scene is painfully bad because its humor is sinister and uncreative, not cute and funny, as the film’s producers clearly hoped it would be. It’s also a moment that sums up the film to follow -- a “family” film that has one of the lowest maturity levels of any such genre entry in recent memory.
We soon learn through wretched dialogue that the 7-year-old Kevin (Bolden) and the 11-year-old Lindsey (Allen) are trying to keep their mother, a professional party planner named Suzanne (Nia Long), available for their estranged father to return to her. But first, enter Nick (Ice Cube), a sports memorabilia store owner who has just splurged a sparkling new Lincoln Navigator and almost simultaneously has become infatuated with Suzanne. He hates children and values his independence, but something clicks between them and he appears willing to get to know her better. Eventually they’re so friendly with one another that he agrees to take her children on a trip to visit her on New Year’s Eve at a job 300 miles away. What follows is a nauseating and childish attempt at a kids’ version of Planes, Trains, & Automobiles.
The always likeable Ice Cube is reduced to an unnatural, kid-friendly character who becomes the butt of every single joke that will only be funny to those who laugh at everything. He maintains his tough-guy, no-nonsense attitude, which is wasted and never used for comedic effect. Instead, the humor is so awful and the kids so intensely, consistently annoying that there’s absolutely nothing for him to work with. The Ice Cube we know so well (even the principled family man he played in Barbershop) would have quickly set these children in their place -- but, for the sake of this terrible film, he has to keep things going.
In one of several completely unbelievable scenes, Nick and the kids are kicked out of the airport after he’s tackled by a group of security guards for having a corkscrew in his pocket. They then try the train, which also doesn’t work because the kids sneak off, and it’s here that Nick suffers the first of at least a half-dozen (normally) life-threatening injuries that will be dealt to him throughout the course of the film (but this movie is kind of a live-action cartoon, so Nick only has to limp and groan for five seconds after). As a last resort, Nick and the kids turn to his pristine Lincoln Navigator, but the 300-mile trip is a natural forum for a boatload of moronic antics involving urine, vomit, a giant axe to the crotch, a berserk deer, karaoke singing, and crazy truck drivers.
Not only are these things not funny, but some of the pranks the kids pull are just plain sadistic. In one, Lindsey holds up a sign saying “Help Us!” to a passing truck driver, making him think they’ve been kidnapped, and they’re subsequently almost killed in a traffic accident as the trucker tries to run Nick’s Navigator off the road. But the kids just sit and giggle as the SUV careens down a steep hill, through a forest, and over a cliff, landing at the bottom in a big cloud of dust from which everyone emerges without a scratch.
Had everything been much more believable and less mean-spirited, or if Ice Cube had been able to get his well deserved revenge on the devilish children, the movie might have had a little something for parents to be entertained with. It wouldn’t have been much, but if you’re forced to watch this movie you’ll understand why I say that any improvement is better than none. Especially if it involves revenge on the children that make the whole thing so terrible.
-- Andy Zientek (zfilm@earthlink.net)