Movie Review: Are We There Yet?

Are We There Yet? (2005) 

Directed by Brian Levant

Written by David N. Weiss

Starring Ice Cube, Nia Long, Jay Mohr, Tracy Morgan

Release Date January 21st, 2005 

Published January 20th, 2005

Is Ice Cube attempting to shed his gangsta image in favor of being Martin Lawrence's understudy? It's a fair question when you see him choosing scripts like the one for Are We There Yet, clearly a role that  Martin Lawrence or even Cedric The Entertainer managed to turn down. Are We There Yet is brutally awful. An absolute utter mess of mean spirited physical humor and demonic child characters with a tacked on sappy and sentimental ending.

Honestly, this movie couldn't be worse if it had been inspired by a video game and directed by Uwe Boll.

Nick (Ice Cube) hates children. So bad luck for him when he falls in love at first sight with Suzanne (Nia Long), the mother of two small children. Nick's luck is worse than he knows because even before meeting him the two kids, Lindsey (Aleisha Allen) and Kevin (Philip Bolden), have it in for him. For Lindsey and Kevin no man is good enough for their mom, except their dad who has left the family.

Despite his hatred of children Nick really wants to get some, so of course when Suzanne needs someone to ferry her kids from her home in Oregon to Vancouver, Canada where she has to work on New Years Eve, Nick is the first to volunteer. At first they were supposed to fly in, but the kids set him up for Homeland security, putting the kibosh on the plane flight.

They try a train but once again the kids have it in for him. So they are left to drive in Nick's brand new Lincoln Navigator. No points for guessing what happens to this gorgeous vehicle thanks to these two evil children. Poor Nick is then subjected to every form of hack screen writer kind of human torture, from the classic kick in the groin to every form of gross-out humor imaginable.

The film attempts to establish a broad comic tone that might justify it's flights of gross-out humor and over the top elements like Nick's talking bobble head. However the film loses that attempt by tacking on scenes of import such as when the kids are forced to confront their no good father and find out he's never coming back. Such a weighty subject has no place in a film in which a child peeing on an innocent woman is a big comic moment.

And the film manages to get worse. For some reason beyond the comprehension of any right thinking movie watcher, Nick has a Satchell Page bobble head doll. If that is not indignity enough for the legendary Mr. Page, the doll talks to Nick in the voice of former SNL star Tracy Morgan. Why the four screen writers , who shall remain nameless, and hack Director Brian Levant, the auteur behind classics like Jingle All The Way and Snow Dogs, chose to denigrate Mr. Page in this way is anyone's guess. But why does Nick talk to the bobble head and it talk back, is the character supposed to be insane?

How does Director Brian Levant keep getting work? His films have managed to get worse every time he makes one. Jingle All The Way, Snow Dogs and now Are We There Yet are a triumvirate of films that on one resume should mean automatic dismissal. Instead he's already at work on another project. God help us if there is another bobble head or child in the vicinity.