Road-trip comedy lurches from pothole to pothole

Friday, January 21, 2005

By SEAN AXMAKER
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

The title of Ice Cube's misguided detour into the family film genre suggests a family road trip farce. It certainly couldn't have been worse than this sour slapstick assault with a tin heart and counterfeit sentimentality.

MOVIE REVIEW

ARE WE THERE YET?

DIRECTOR: Brian Levant

CAST: Ice Cube, Nia Long, Aleisha Allen, Philip Bolden

RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes

RATING: PG for language and rude humor

WHERE: Bella Bottega 11, Cinema 17, Crossroads 8, East Valley 13, Everett 9, Factoria, Grand Cinemas, Issaquah 9, Marysville Cinema 14, Meridian 16, Mountlake 9, Parkway Plaza 12, South Hill Mall, Woodinville 12

GRADE: D

Ice Cube is Nick, a former minor-league ballplayer turned sports memorabilia shop entrepreneur who likes the ladies, lives for his brand new SUV and hates kids. "They're like cockroaches, except you can't squash 'em."

Mr. Sensitivity is supposed to be a playa, but apart from his ogling gorgeous divorcee and single mom Suzanne (Nia Long), we see none of it. When Suzanne's ex bails on his responsibility to the kids once again, Nick volunteers to get them from Portland, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., in time to celebrate New Year's Eve with party planner Mom. (Don't look for landmarks -- apart from a few establishing shots of Portland, it was shot entirely in British Columbia.)

Little Kevin (Philip Bolden) is an asthmatic obsessive compulsive, but only when it's needed for a plot point, and his older sister, Lindsey (Aleisha Allen), bruised by her father's emotional abandonment, responds with a combativeness that, in thoughtful hands, could suggest something akin to subtext. Together they are insufferable horrors who apparently have committed "Home Alone" to memory and practice their own version on all of their mother's suitors. Nick is in their sights.

You might call it badly written, but that would be giving too much credit to this lazy collection of gags, which run the gamut from slapstick blows to the groin to projectile vomiting, with epic amounts of property damage in between. It isn't merely meaningless, it's thoughtless.

Scenes are simply strung together -- with hugs and warm fuzzies unleashed. Some of the most despicable and destructive behavior perpetrated onscreen by a juvenile is forgiven and relationships are magically transformed between the assaults upon Ice Cube's person.

Director Brian Levant can't pace a scene, develop a character or time a joke, but finally his criminal misuse of the spirit of Satchel Paige is too much. This road trip never gets out of the driveway.

Sean Axmaker is a movie reviewer and freelance film writer based in Seattle. He can be reached via e-mail at seanax@hotmail.com.