Stars:
**
Rating: PG for mild
language and bathroom humor
Run
Time: 1
hour, 32 minutes
Nick
Persons (Ice Cube) is a player, a king of bling and successful owner of a fine
sports collectibles business. A
confirmed bachelor who only eats food with an expiration date and equates
children with cockroaches (“but you can’t squish ‘em”), Nick is the ultimate
man’s man.
When Nick
gets a load of foxy wedding planner Suzanne Kingston (Nia Long) all bets are
off. Suzanne is Numero Uno on Nick’s
list of projects until he finds out she’s a “breeder”, a single mom of two
kids. But hot is hot and Nick’s got to get with it.
The kids
turn a cold shoulder to Nick’s smooth moves, so courting the munchkins looks
like the quickest way to Suzanne’s heart.
When Kevin and Lindsay’s (Philip Daniel Bolden and Aleisha Allen) wayward
Dad poops out on Suzanne for a long weekend of child-minding, Nick gallantly
comes to the rescue by agreeing to transport the juvenile demons to Suzanne’s
New Year’s Eve business blowout.
A security
snafu gets them thrown out of the airport and an errant doll malfunction nixes
the train trip, so it’s Nick’s phat ride (big bad Lincoln Navigator with
sparkling rims and 330 cubic inches of V8 power) to the rescue. Three-hundred
miles from
This is the
part where I admit to a serious yen for Ice Cube. The guy’s got genuine game
and monumental charisma. A saving grace
when you consider the incessant bathroom humor, goofy gags alternating with
Message Moments, and cliché-riddled plot meant to induce laughter and tears.
On top of
which is the talking Satchel Paige bobblehead (alternately clever and cloying),
a computer-generated deer attack (you had to be there but be glad you weren’t)
and the Nick’s bromidic transformation from child-abhorrer to lifetime member
of the mush-of-the-moment club.
Ridiculously
trite but ultimately harmless.