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Not long ago, Nick Persons (Ice Cube) tried to impress his girlfriend, Suzanne (Nia Long), by putting up with her two unruly kids. Now, Nick and Suzanne are married, and those two unruly kids are his step-kids, Lindsey (Aleisha Allen) and Kevin (Philip Bolden). When Suzanne announces that she’s pregnant, the newlyweds decide it’s time to leave their tiny apartment in the city and give their family a new life in the country.
Thanks to creepy real estate agent Chuck Mitchell (John C. McGinley), Nick and Suzanne find their dream home right away. It’s a big, beautiful old house with five bedrooms and plenty of room for the kids to run. It also has a guest cottage, which will make the perfect office for Nick’s new sports magazine. Sure, it’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but Nick’s pretty sure he can fix it.
Once they move into their dream home, however, the Persons discover that it needs more work than they thought. It starts with the electrical problems. Nick calls the local contractor to get the wiring fixed, only to discover that the local contractor is Chuck Mitchell, the local real estate agent (also the city inspector and a trained midwife who once played a game with the Lakers back in the day, too). Nick soon realizes that he’s totally at Chuck’s mercy. To make matters worse, Suzanne and the kids love Chuck—and it seems like he’s taking over Nick’s happy new family.
Are We Done Yet? is both the sequel to 2005’s Are We There Yet? and the remake of the 1948 Cary Grant movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Though I skipped the first Are We…? movie, I’d heard enough about it to be more than a little skeptical about the sequel. So I walked in with low expectations—but I actually walked out feeling pleasantly surprised.
Although Ice Cube doesn’t exactly give his best performance ever (actually, he seems a little bit bored with the whole thing)—and John C. McGinley is just a little bit scary—Are We Done Yet? is actually a cute family movie. There’s enough slapstick comedy and cheap laughs to keep the kids giggling (and it’s tame enough that you won’t regret letting them see it). And any adult who’s ever owned a house will be able to relate to Nick’s homeowner headaches. It’s not an especially original story, but the story moves along at a good pace, and though the humor may have been done before, it never really feels stale (though I did get a little sick of McGinley by the end). So while it’s not a brilliant, must-see comedy, it’s pretty entertaining nonetheless.
Ice Cube probably doesn’t need to worry about clearing his schedule for next year’s Oscars—but when it comes to family entertainment, you can do worse than Are We Done Yet?. It’s got a fun story and lovably silly characters that might just keep you chuckling long after you leave the theater.
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