Sight Unseen: January 21, 2005

First in a Friday series of reviews of movies I haven't seen.

Assault on Precinct 13
Reality bites Laurence Fishburne in the ass when he and Ethan Hawke are assaulted in precinct 13. Fishburne wishes he'd wake up to find he's still stuck in The Matrix. Rent Deep Cover instead.

Are We There Yet?
Critics are going to give Ice Cube a bad rap for this movie.

They'll astutely note that the one-time gangsta rapper is in a family movie and looks the fool getting pummeled by a deer (how many movies has that tired scenario been played out in).

And that's just fine with Cube.

As near as I can guess from the previews, Are We There Yet? is a road-trip starring-vehicle for Ice Cube (complete with an Amtrak promotional tie-in) in which he portrays a playa (a stretch for the man who once declared, "I'm Only Out for One Thang") forced to put up with some brats and put aside his bravado to woo a single mother. Take a tour of the Ice Cube library, and you'll discover that the boy n the hood who asked, "do I look like a muthafuckin' role model", also knows how to turn on the charm ("she didn't get offended it was splendid to me/cause Mister Nice Guy is what I pretended to be"). Ice Cube's on familiar ground in Are We There Yet?, and because it's a family film there's sure to be a happy ending with the protagonist learning a life lesson and the female lead "givin' up the nappy dug out" before the credits roll.