ARE WE DONE YET? (Steve Carr). 92 minutes. Now playing. Rating: NNN Rating: NNN
After the blowout success of Are We There Yet?, this follow-up to Ice Cube‘s G-rated dawg-out-of-water story was unavoidable. In Are We Done Yet?, he reprises the role of the cantankerous Nick Persons, now hitched and adjusting to domestic life in his cramped apartment with wife Suzanne (Nia Long) and her bratty kids.
It only takes one sloppy morning with the fam for Nick (now an aspiring sports magazine publisher) to realize the Persons could use more space. So he settles on a “fixer-upper” of a country house that starts crumbling from the moment the realtor slams the door. That the real estate agent, Chuck Mitchell Jr. (a hysterically irritating turn by John C. McGinley), is also the town contractor and safety inspector is a conflict of interest that flusters Nick no end.
The chipper Chuck’s not the only one provoking Ice Cube’s sneer. The countryside setting provides the perfect set-up for Nick to get assaulted by all manner of CGI-altered wildlife – a snarling deer, talking raccoon and shrieking shark – when he’s not plunging through whole floors of the house. Somewhere along the way, he learns about being a good dad. Nick’s wife and kids are annoyingly unsympathetic, but it’s easy to suspend your disbelief once you’ve accepted the talking raccoon.
Based on 1948 movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, with traces of What About Bob? and Home Alone, AWDY? rolls along easily and colourfully, flooded with broad jokes that make for mindless, harmless family fun.
