Review
ARE WE THERE YET?
Starring Ice Cube, Nia Long and Aleisha Allen
Directed by Brian Levant
Opens Friday, January 21
Check listings
Witness the wisdom of Ice Cube, circa 1998 and 2005, respectively: "When I'm called off, I got a sawed off/ Squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off"; "(Kids) are like cockroaches – except you can’t squish ’em."
Films in which former tough guys get outgunned by children are plentiful (next month brings us Vin Diesel as The Pacifier, an ex-Navy SEAL-turned-nanny), but few have featured a dive as magnificent as the one Cube takes in Are We There Yet?, the sloppy, irritating family comedy from director Brian Levant.
The former Nigga With Attitude plays Nick Persons, a sporting-goods retailer who hates kids almost as much as he loves his bling and his car. The vehicle, an SUV with spinning rims, figures heavily in the plot, which sees Nick trying to transport his new girlfriend’s tots to Vancouver in order to win her love. Unwilling to let go of their absentee father, the kids (Aleisha Allen and Philip Bolden) do whatever they can to derail Nick’s mission, including performing all manner of injustices – barfing, scratching, exploding – on his beloved ride.
Rarely have there been two more intolerable child actors than Allen and Bolden, who spend all the time they’re not destroying things whining at a fever pitch. Nia Long’s turn as their beset and bebosomed mom is no better – why anyone would want to be with this boiled potato of a woman is unfathomable.
Ice Cube has undeniable charm, and he can act – Three Kings showed us that – so it’s sad to see him slide so easily into Eddie Murphy mode, especially in a film based on the archaic idea that men are inherently inept caregivers. In particular, NWA fans will cringe at a scene in which Cube, proclaiming that he "keeps it real," dials a 50 Cent track onto his stereo.
If you must see this, bring a 40 of Colt, and be prepared to drain it. This homeboy has definitely fallen. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.