CAST: Ice Cube, John C. McGinley, Nia Long, Aleisha Allen, Philip Daniel Bolden and Tahj Mowry
DIRECTOR: Steve Carr
Year: 2005
The 2005 family road comedy "Are We There Yet?" was not, by any stretch of the interstate or the imagination, a good film.
Yet it held undeniable appeal: Through its tale of a bachelor terrorized, "Home Alone"-style, by two kids, we saw the completion of Ice Cube's slow transformation into Tim Allen.
When now-family man Nick Persons (Ice Cube) steps onto the roof of his crumbling dream house, we know his footing won't be solid for long. When his family, which includes his nemeses-turned-stepchildren, sits down to dinner, it's only a matter of time before the chandelier becomes a side dish.
The slipshod slapstick begins even before Nick, pregnant wife Suzanne (Nia Long) and her kids, Lindsey and Kevin (Aleisha Allen and Philip Daniel Bolden), move to the suburbs. A morning of family high jinks in Nick's now-cramped bachelor pad will leave him, quite literally, with egg on his face.
"Are We Done Yet?" is labored in origin as well as in execution, with credits that would take a crane to lift. Directed by Steve Carr, the film is a sequel but also based on the 1948 Cary Grant film "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," already evoked by the Tom Hanks comedy "The Money Pit."
In accommodating its construction-nightmare premise, the film practically abandons the family angle. Long's character, who showed verve as a working single mom in the first film, comes off here as alternately unsupportive and clueless.
Suzanne seems fine, for instance, with having to track down Nick at a bar to show him a sonogram photo. Given that he works at home on his own magazine, Nick could have found the time to accompany his wife to the doctor's office.
The kids barely factor into the story once the family makes its move. Nick is too consumed with noise being made by construction crews to bond with Kevin, and the now-teenage Lindsey spends her time on the phone with friends back in the city.
Though gorgeous on the surface, the family's huge, late-19th-century home shows signs of big trouble from Day One. After Nick fails in an attempt to do his own repairs, he calls Chuck Mitchell (John C. McGinley), the local real estate guy, contractor and midwife.
This ethically dubious Chuck-of-all-trades vexes Nick to no end. Yet their relationship is the only one in the film with even a hint of arc.
McGinley, from NBC's "Scrubs," is a stalwart comic actor who never makes a false move onscreen. Unfortunately, his fine work is wasted in films such as this one and "Wild Hogs."
Though this is ostensibly a family film, it's hard to imagine kids being fascinated by all the construction talk. Even the charismatic Tahj Mowry, as a local boy who makes the suburbs look a little brighter to Lindsey, can't offset a subplot about dry rot.
Playing a character who is often frustrated or stressed out keeps Cube in dour mode for most of the picture. But he's winning in a scene in which Nick discovers, upon first touring the house, that the bathroom contains a private toilet stall.
As Nick imagines the possibilities, Ice Cube's face lights up in wonder. In most films, a bathroom-related joke would represent the lowest form of humor. In this one, it's a highlight.
An animated Ice Cube greets the audience in the opening credit sequence, but that�s the last time you will see an energetic and engaging Ice Cube for the rest of the movie.
Ice Cube is back as Nick � the sports memorabilia shop owner from Are We There Yet. Now, he has married Suzanne (Nia Long), moved the whole family into his apartment (Didn�t she have a big house in the first movie? Why not live there?), sold the shop, and is in the process of starting his own sports magazine. Of course, the apartment is proving to be too small for the family of four, and some big news makes it even more apparent it is time to buy a house. Nick and the family find their beautiful dream house out in the Portland countryside, but it quickly becomes obvious to them that the place needs some fixing up.
How bad is it? Can Nick and the family handle the stress of fixing the place up?
Based on the Cary Grant movie, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, even the ghost of Cary Grant might want to consider a lawsuit against the people who perpetrated this flat, lifeless comedy on the world and tied his name to it so prominently. Ice Cube is the biggest problem.
He�s trying so hard to look cool and tough that he doesn�t give himself over enough to the comedy. Is Ice Cube trying to keep cool out of fear of melting away? He needs to be a man losing control, flummoxed by the events around him and immersing himself into the craziness of the comedy. When performing Straight Outta Compton, you might be worried about looking idiotic, but you can�t be afraid of looking silly in a comedy. It�s not a completely horrible performance, but one that needs more help, and shows me he would be better off in a more subtle, smoother comedy, instead of one like this that calls for broader acting.
The result is a movie with much forced silliness and slapstick. Director Steve Carr and writer Hank Nelken don�t build to anything. They just let most jokes happen without structure or basis hoping a pratfall will be enough to entertain the audience. They have some funny running jokes, like an extension from the first movie about how everything in nature hates Nick, but that�s about as deep and planned as the movie gets.
Are We Done Yet? is a movie made mediocre or mildly passable by John C. McGinley, who plays Chuck Mitchell, Jr. � the town�s Mr. Everything who buddies up to the family. While Carr and Nelken ruin his storyline with a weak attempt at sentimentality we have seen in other movies before (and done much better), McGinley puts in a yeoman�s effort to liven up the proceedings, and has a strange chemistry with Ice Cube that almost works.
Are We Done Yet? is not an offensively bad movie, and you will laugh at some stuff, but it leaves you asking why anyone would care to make it, or rush out to see it.
"Are We Done Yet?" Let's hope the answer is yes.
Former tough guy rapper Ice Cube squanders the last remnants of his street cred by starring in yet another moronic and condescending family comedy to follow 2005's "Are We There Yet?"
Cube plays sports-shop-owner-turned-magazine-publisher Nick Persons, who in the first film impressed his girlfriend Suzanne (Nia Long) by driving her two bratty kids cross-country.
This time it's the audience that gets taken for a ride. Nick and Suzanne are married with twins on the way and move to a country home in the Pacific Northwest. The perfect-looking house turns out to be a disaster, with sloppy design and a crumbling infrastructure, much like the script.
Wait until you get a load of the humdingers that pass for comedy here. The level of invention and surprise is truly phenomenal. In one scene, Nick opens a window, and then the window breaks! Another time, Nick stomps on the balcony, and then falls through! And you'll never guess what happens when he pulls hard on a doorknob. Sigh.
John C. McGinley � Dr. Perry Cox from TV's "Scrubs" � degrades himself by playing the village idiot to Cube's sneering straight man. As Chuck, the local real estate agent/contractor/building inspector/con artist, McGinley overgestures and bugs out his eyes to the point you begin to worry that he may be suffering a brain hemorrhage.
Chuck is supposed to be a lovable, bumbling villain. At least he got the bumbling part right. He continues to cause problems for Nick, such as selling him the lemon house, then helping him fix it up, only to further wreck the home. Nick stupidly keeps accepting Chuck's overtures, making it difficult to sympathize with his fits of rage when things don't go according to plan.
Occasionally, some of the slapstick hits its mark. Cube is a talented actor with a gift for comedy, and sometimes he can will his way to laughs. He just doesn't have enough material to work with, which is odd, because the movie is a remake of the entertaining Cary Grant comedy "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" (1948). Bizarrely, the gags in "Are We Done Yet?" seem far more than 60 years old.
The movie unfolds in the iron arc of a sitcom, in which all the pieces must be neatly solved by the end of the episode. Eventually, the entire community gets involved with rebuilding the Personses' house, improbably raising it from a pile of sticks to a gorgeous, impeccable mansion that would make Bob Vila blush.
The worst thing about "Are We Done Yet?" isn't that it's a sequel to "Are We There Yet?" a noxious alleged family comedy from 2005 that didn't deserve a sequel.
The worst thing is that the film actually claims to have been based on "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," the classic 1948 comedy starring Cary Grant.
But this Ice Cube vehicle is far from a classic. It's alternately mean-spirited and dumb, and it features few if any laughs.
Producer Cube reprises his role as Nick Persons, who's got his hands full with a new wife, Suzanne (Nia Long) and two obnoxious stepchildren � the frail Kevin (Philip Bolden) and the sassy Lindsey (Aleisha Allen).
Nick's bachelor pad is too small for them and the new family dog, so he buys a rather quaint home in the country. Unfortunately, what realtor Chuck Mitchell Jr. (John C. McGinley) hasn't told him is that it's a real fixer-upper. And as it turns out, the only contractor, inspector and fix-it-man in the vicinity is ... you guessed it, Chuck.
The first "Are We?" movie was basically a road comedy. And if anything, this equally unfunny mess more resembles the 1987 buddy comedy "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," with Cube and McGinley taking the Steve Martin and John Candy roles.
The talented McGinley (TV's "Scrubs") does try to work this material into some sort of comedic shape. But it defies his best efforts. And having him play off of the scowling, unlikable Cube (at least in this role) certainly doesn't help.
Played for laughs but sadly lacking, Are We Done Yet manages to take a funny premise and squeeze it dry of every teensy morsel of humour. As heavy handed as the hammer with which Ice Cube's well meaning Nick Persons tries to fix his crumbling house, the film relies on its broad comedy, but forgets the importance of script and characters. Nothing is real, nor do we care for any of the characters, despite the filmmakers' attempts to inject a syringe-full of syrupy sentimentality at the end.
A few thousand things need fixing when Ice Cube's well meaning Nick Persons buys his growing family a large, rambling house far away from the hubbub of his city apartment. 'We'll take it,' Nick tells Chuck, the friendly real estate agent, as the roof disintegrates under his feet, before he discovers termites, dry rot, corroded pipes, raccoons, bats, shonky electric wiring, leaking roof and faulty foundations. 'I can fix that,' Nick tells his ditzy wife Suzanne, who spends the whole film wide-eyed and pregnant. I chuckled when we first meet John C. McGinley's effeminate and permanently grinning Chuck, who literally changes hats for each of the positions he holds - real estate agent, local inspector, midwife (baby-whisperer), construction supervisor, capoeira (Brazilian martial srts) expert, fire-dancer, relationship therapist etc. But the single joke is played on one note and quickly becomes repetitive and tedious.
Low points include Ice Cube having jalapeno sauce sprinkled on his face at baby birthing time, Ice Cube wearing striped PJs wielding a mop on a rooftop, and Ice Cube coming face to face underwater with a giant shark - both screaming. Let's hope this franchise is well and truly done.
Everything you need to know about Steve Carr's grating comedy "Are We Done Yet?" is right there in the title. It's what the actors seem to be thinking, and it's what every audience member over 9 will be asking.
Which means the title is the only thing Carr got exactly right.
Though the opening credits optimistically announce that the movie is based on the classic 1948 comedy "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," the real inspiration for this tiresome retread was the $98 million made by its equally obnoxious predecessor, "Are We There Yet?"
In the last movie, bachelor Nick Persons (Ice Cube) reluctantly baby-sat the bratty kids (Aleisha Allen, Philip Bolden) of his girlfriend Suzanne (Nia Long). By now, Nick and Suzanne are married, and the whole clan is crammed into his tiny apartment. With Suzanne expecting twins, the peaceful space of the suburbs is starting to look pretty good. So when aggressive real estate agent Chuck (John C. McGinley) shows them a gorgeous country house, Nick eagerly signs on.
Then the roof starts to leak. The power shorts out. Workmen, and their overexposed body parts, invade every room. And somewhere between the rabid raccoons and the dry rot it dawns on Nick that Chuck has his hand in each disaster. He is not only the local realtor, but also, according to the script's lazy logic, the only contractor, electrician, animal wrangler and midwife around. And everyone else loves the guy; only Nick can see what an evil menace he really is.
Actually, we see it too, if only because McGinley's pop-eyed performance would put a season's worth of Easter hams to shame. (Although perhaps he's just trying to compensate for Ice Cube's evident lack of enthusiasm, which may stem from the dawning awareness that he has turned himself into Tim Allen.)
After allowing sadistic violence and whining children to invade his movie like a horde of termites, Carr tries to put one over on us by tacking on a sentimental ending. But as any homeowner could have told him, you can't disguise a weak foundation with a cheap finish.
Nick Persons (Ice Cube) is now married to Suzanne (Nia Long), and making do with her troublesome kids. They are about to have their own twins, so they buy a house in the country to raise their growing family. But the house is full of problems, so Nick spends the whole movie battling eccentric workers, faulty construction and being a new dad.
There are no elaborate Money Pit style set pieces. Things that fall apart usually just cause one problem and then move on. And many of the things that fall apart aren't even the house's fault. They just hire people who mess things up more.
But there's lots of falling down, sloppy food messes and animals taunting the heroes. Cube does a good job mugging it up in his pratfalls. He shows he doesn't have to take himself seriously but can commit to the ridiculous with joy.
The star of the comedy is John C. McGinley as a jack of all trades going from realtor to contractor to inspector to midwife. He plays each profession as a slightly different character, but all weird. None of them are wise like Dr. Cox but they allow McGinley to rant absurdly and show off his abs.
The heartfelt moments pop up when expected. They've got the sitcom music and the simple issues of accepting responsibility, sticking things out until the end and forgiving people.
The weird neighbors kinds of never pay off. There's one montage where Nick reacts to everyone and then one couple shows up to explain some backstory in the end, but they're never recurring characters.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit I never saw Are We There Yet?. If this review sounds like the disinterested evaluation of someone who was not fully invested in the franchise characters, I apologize. It just seemed like your average family comedy to me.
Mr. Cube builds his dream house in "Are We Done Yet?" which essentially takes the "Are We There Yet?" characters and grafts them into the basic plot line for the classic RKO comedy "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," in which Cary Grant played Mr. Blandings, a man who predated "Green Acres' " Oliver Douglas by a couple of decades.
While the refurbished version would never be taken as an improvement over the original, it makes for a generally inoffensive hour-and-a-half, and with a certifiably gonzo John C. McGinley providing the bulk of the laughs, it is definitely less obnoxious than those "Cheaper by the Dozen" remakes.
It also is better than the 2005 Ice Cube comedy that still managed to gross a highly respectable $82 million. Given the new film's pre-Easter weekend release strategy, it should play well with kids and home improvement fanatics, though others could find themselves relating to the title on more than one occasion.
The last time we saw Ice Cube's Nick Persons, he was trapped in an SUV with two kids traveling from Portland to Vancouver. Now fully domesticated, Nick, his bride, Suzanne (Nia Long), and her two growing children (Aleisha Allen, Philip Daniel Bolden) are finding his former bachelor pad a little cramped, and with twins on the way, bigger quarters are required sooner rather than later.
They find the sprawling house of their dreams in the rural Pacific Northwest (courtesy of British Columbia), which affords lots of fresh air and lakeside views. It also proves to be a major money pit, but Persons is so taken in by a local real estate agent's ("Scrubs" regular McGinley) slick sales pitch, he fails to notice all the telltale signs.
As it turns out, McGinley's ingratiating Chuck Mitchell Jr. wears a number of hats, including building inspector and contractor, and before Nick knows what has hit him, Chuck has moved his Airstream trailer into the Persons' yard to oversee the neverending renovations.
Directed by Steve Carr, who helmed Ice Cube's "Next Friday," and adapted by Hank Nelken ("Saving Silverman"), the picture delivers the requisite number of pratfalls, and the genial Ice Cube makes for a credibly hapless everyman, but the comedy still feels a little too safely soft around the edges. A little more inspiration could have made it something enjoyable instead of simply innocuous.
Visually, cinematographer Jack Green, a frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator, effectively captures all those unobstructed, picture-perfect vistas. Production designer Nina Ruscio rightfully lends the house a distinctive character of its own.
Should the Persons family return for another sequel, here's hoping they at least don't take another dip into the RKO vault and turn "Citizen Kane" into "Are We Rich Yet?"