Are We There Yet?

Directed by Brian Levant, Are We There Yet? follows Ice Cube’s Nick Persons as he reluctantly agrees to travel with his potential girlfriend’s (Nia Long’s Suzanne) children (Aleisha Allen’s Lindsey and Philip Bolden’s Kevin) to Vancouver. Filmmaker Levant, working from a script by Steven Gary Banks, Claudia Grazioso, J. David Stem, and David N. Weiss, delivers a watchable yet progressively disappointing comedy that fares best in its brisk, diverting first half, as the movie, in its early stages, boasts an agreeably lighthearted sensibility that’s perpetuated by Cube’s affable performance and a smattering of larger-than-life sequences and set-pieces (eg Nick’s encounter with a cartoonish deer). And while the consistent (and constant) nagging of the aforementioned children can be grating, Are We There Yet?‘s easygoing atmosphere, coupled with an ongoing reliance on pleasant digressions, goes a long way towards generally compensating for its less-than-enthralling attributes – although it’s equally clear that the picture’s momentum takes a serious hit with an unreasonably sentimental and melodramatic final stretch. (This is particularly true of an entirely needless fake breakup between Nick and Suzanne.) The end result is an almost passable endeavor that feels like it could (and should) be better, which is a shame, ultimately, given the potential afforded by Cube’s entertainingly exasperated turn as the broad central character.

** out of ****