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Unfortunately, as long as Hollywood sees a profit in them they will continue to roll out these types of appalling, strictly by-the-numbers children's flicks. When it comes to this genre quality is never the concern. It's the money. They hire the cheapest cast and crew they can and supply a reasonably small budget. Filtering little money into the film means that they'll easily return a large profit at the box office, even more easily returning its original budget.
This inevitable sequel to the inexcusably dismal 2005 film Are We There Yet? is just as bad as its predecessor, if not even worse. Ice Cube continues to dig a bigger hole for the corpse of his career by starring in films like these.
After the events of the first film we once again follow Nick Persons (Cube) who is now married to Suzanne (Long) and is now the stepfather of Suzanne's kids. The four of them are living in Nick's small condo that can barely accommodate them all. After Suzanne falls pregnant they soon decide that a bigger house is necessary to support the growing family. While looking for a house they meet wacky realtor/contractor/building inspector/policeman Chuck (McGinley) who convinces Nick to buy a big luxurious house that he can barely afford. Predictably, trouble strikes in the form of termites, dry rot, loss of electricity, falling through floors, and so on.
This then begins the film's journey down into the world of conventional storytelling that we've seen before as things go from bad to worse. It's a bunch of unfunny slapstick gags strung together as a sequel to an already appalling movie.
All the gags and pratfalls are easily predictable several minutes before they occur. I mean who would have predicted that Ice Cube would begin falling through collapsing walls and floors...? Aside from that it's also predictable that he will get struck by lightning, fall from ladders and get attacked by a cavalcade of different animals. And then of course the trademark cherry on top: Suzanne begins to go into labour at an awkward and inconvenient moment.
What's more - it's a credited remake of the 1948 movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (complete with an RKO logo at the beginning). But Ice Cube is no Cary Grant. The film is even more tragic by its references to several other (better quality) movies like Jaws and The Birds.
Just like its predecessor, Ice Cube's performance is somewhat questionable. The kids have further lost their appeal because now they're not young. Now they are older annoying snots who are even more irritating. I couldn't believe someone like John C. McGinley agreed to appear in this film. The man can be funny when given good material. Unfortunately there are no clever lines of dialogue for him to work with.
Are We Done Yet? is almost a rehash of the original with a house being wrecked as opposed to an expensive car. The film is phenomenally bad, notoriously unfunny, and pitches a more valuable question to the viewing audience: are we done with this series yet? One of the poorest films of 2007!
1/10
