Guess Who

Some good, brief laughs here, but nothing too surprising. It's pretty much "Meet the Black Parents," but not quite as funny or daring as you'd expect it to be.

I haven't seen the orignal movie from which this is based, so I won't compare the two, but I will compare it to "Meet the Parents" because I felt like I was watching the remake. I feel like the casting for Guess Who was excellent, but none of the actors were really given the chance to do anything with their characters. At the conclusion of almost every scene, I felt like there was a lot left unsaid.

There are no surprises here--Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher) goes to meet his girlfriend's (Zoe Saldana) parents for the weekend. Simon's girlfriend, Theresa, has not told her parents that Simon is white, and thus follows a series of uncomfortable moments between Simon and Theresa's father, Percy Jones (Bernie Mac). There's a dinner scene where Percy goads Simon into telling black jokes, and then after telling a few that the family finds amusing, Simon tells one that goes over the line and offends everyone at the table. Wow, didn't see that one coming--and furthermore, how stupid is Simon? Honestly, what normal person would even take it that far? If Simon is trying to impress Theresa's parents, then he's going to be sure not to do anything that could be offensive to them, especially when race is the main factor!

Like I said, predictable. Even the ending is obvious as the movie follows its formula to conclusion, which is fine I guess, most movies follow the same general formula--we're given the set of circumstances and characters as they are, new people and/or events come into play which cause an eventual breakdown and "low point", and then, cartharsis, everyone works it out and ends up happy, la la la. Well, the same is true for this movie. It's not the predictability that bothers me as much as the fact that this movie sets itself up as a comedy, but does not deliver much while it progresses toward conclusion.

When a comedian like Bernie Mac is paired with someone like Ashton Kutcher (who plays these types of roles very well), you would expect it to be pretty amusing, but there were so many missed opportunities that I just felt cheated. It seems like the director/writers were afraid to offend anyone, so they just shot straight through the middle. Sure, mission accomplished in that no one gets offended, but the drawback is that the audience isn't presented with any new insight into interracial relationships whatsoever. And furthermore, the comedy factor is limited to everyday "meet the parents" stuff. Most of these interactions could have occurred with an all-black or all-white couple.

Been there. Seen that. In other words, don't go there and see that in the theaters, wait for the DVD.