Are We There Yet? Hot

Are We There Yet? is more enjoyable than the critics are making it out to be, but I would not take young children of an impressionable age. The children in the movie are major brats -- determined to stop any man from dating their mom whom they believe will reunite with their father. The laughs that come from the children's very, very bad behavior may encourage kids that it's funny to act that way; your taking them to and laughing with this movie may be condoning it in their eyes, especially for young children.

The story is about a man who doesn't like children but tries to endure them to win over their divorced mom. There are several moments that may make you uncomfortable: Nick (Ice Cube) and his friend (Jay Mohr) drool over the kids' mom (Nia Long) while he makes leering comments. He decides not to pursue the relationship when he sees the kids and says a lot of negative things about children -- I'd hate to think a child would see this and think their single parent will never find a spouse/future step-parent because of them. Nick also swears quite a bit -- the kids admonish him but the cuss words are still there. More than once, an adult is trying to rescue children from a perceived kidnapper by ramming the car with their car and more than once, erratic driving leads to serious car crashes where everyone (except the brand new SUV) miraculously escapes without a scratch.

The reason Nick has the kids is because their father cancels on them at the last minute, saying he is sick. The children later take a freight train to his city and conveniently walk to his house (causing concern that children believe they, too, could just get on train hobo style and find their way in a big city without a map). Once there, they see their father now has another family that they didn't know about and clearly isn't sick. There's a lot of talk about dads' leaving families and not coming back. For divorced families with responsible, involved fathers, this may create a fear that the father will disappear from their lives. Only for kids of an age that you could discuss these issues afterwards, 10 and up.