Black/White

To take a work of pure genius (Guess Who's Coming To Dinner / Stanley Kramer 1967) and turn it into a Bernie mac, Ashton Kutcher roll reversal. I have nothing against the actors in this film... BUT! The original still stands strong as a cinematic masterpiece. Reviewing the troubled historic times past. Any comedic treatment of this classic work is nothing more than panhandling.

You can rent or buy the original for under $10. Sydney Portier was and is his generation. Don't be fooled, This series of remakes being spit out by the studios are simply because they already have the rights to the films and they will be the only ones making money. But the best question is what will they remake in 20 years from now.

Don't buy any of it!

When it was released in 1967, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was acclaimed as a "breakthrough" film for its lighthearted, yet serious, depiction of an interracial romance. In the years since, society has moved so far in the direction of acceptance of so-called "mixed marriages" that any remake is bound to feel, at least to some extent, superfluous and anachronistic. And that is exactly the case with "Guess Who," a 2005 update whose abbreviated title is only the first of the many changes the filmmakers have rung on the Stanley Kramer original.

The screenwriters' first alteration involves switching the race roles, so that it is now a black family having to accept a white male as a prospective in-law rather than the other way around. Bernie Mac assumes the Spencer Tracy role as the father whose world is turned upside down when his beloved daughter brings a Caucasian boyfriend (Ashton Kutcher as a white Sidney Poitier) home to meet the family. On the distaff side, we have Judith Scott taking over for Katherine Hepburn as the understanding mother and Zoe Saldana replacing Katherine Houghton as the freethinking daughter.

Since interracial marriage is no longer the hot-button issue it once was, the filmmakers have been forced to inject a number of other non-race-related plot complications into the mix to develop and maintain the conflict and drama. Thus, we have Kutcher trying to hide the fact from both his fiancé and her family that he has recently quit his high-paying job at a prestigious firm and that he may, in fact, be the target of a securities-and-exchange commission probe. Indeed, with Kutcher spending most of his time trying to win over his critical and overbearing future father-in-law, "Guess Who" feels more like a remake of "Meet the Parents" than of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." The real problem with "Guess Who" is that it rarely has the courage of its convictions. Having decided to tackle a relatively dicey topic, the film too often drops the issue in favor of scenes that wouldn't pass muster even on a third-rate sitcom. For every scene that is incisive and daring - i.e. Kutcher telling a series of black jokes at the family dinner table - there is another that is pure Hollywood hokum (Mac and Kutcher sleeping in the same bed together, Mac and Kutcher having a go-cart race to determine who has the higher testosterone level and the greater machismo, etc.).

All of the performers are fine, especially Mac and Kutcher in the lead roles. However, they just haven't been given very sophisticated material to work with here. "Guess Who" might have been a better film had it aimed more for genuine, hard-edged satire and less for lowbrow slapstick and predictable romantic comedy sentimentality.

Still, it's been 38 years since "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" first shocked the nation with its in-your-face defiance of miscegenation laws, and the world has since moved on to other issues of social injustice and marital definition. Which is why, in the year 2005, "Brokeback Mountain" was a breakthrough film and "Guess Who" was not.

Percy Jones (Bernie Mac) is trying to protect his daughter Theresa (Zoe Saldana) from ending up with the wrong guy, and though he does a thorough background check on her new boyfriend Simon (Ashton Kutcher), there's only one thing his research didn't tell him. He's white and he wants to marry his daughter.

The "meeting the parents" premise has been done to death recently with Monster-in Law and Meet the Fockers being the most recent films. However, what the film lacks in originality, it makes it up with laughs. There were a lot of funny moments and the movie hardly ever got boring. However, most of the funny bits were used in the trailer and this makes the jokes a little less effective since they are already expected. Also, the repeat value of the movie is very low. It's worth watching once but that's pretty much it. I don't think that's a bad thing since most light comedies are like that.

I think the film works well because of the two leads. Both Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher give funny performances and they have nice chemistry together. Their scenes were the best and they never felt forced. Zoe Saldana also gives a good performance and she has come a long way from appearing in Crossroads. Most of the supporting actors are also funny including Judith Scott, who plays Bernie Mac's wife. Mike Epps also makes a cameo though it wasn't that good.

Kevin Rodney Sullivan directs and he only does an okay job. The first half of the film is pretty funny and the racial issues are handled lightly. During the second half, the film becomes all serious and it's kind of awkward. The director ditches the laughs for awhile and he approaches the issue in a mature manner. It kind of works but some of the serious scenes felt fake. It seemed like the actors were about to burst out laughing at any second and the film also got kind of dull. The ending was surprisingly strong though. The changes of tone in the film worked out okay but they weren't as effective as they could have been. In the end, Guess Who is worth a rental, nothing more though. Rating 7/10

Of course this movie is mostly being blasted because it was released so shortly after the success of "Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers", which uses the exact some concept. Only difference with this movie is that it's about an interracial couple. But also when you look beyond this and ignore the fact that this movie is basically the interracial version of "Meet the Parents", it just isn't a great movie because for a comedy its surely lacking. Basically Bernie Mac was the only reason that I still found this movie to be an enjoyable one to watch.

Perhaps biggest problem is that the movie is too predictable. No not just with its story, I mean basically everyone already knows in advance how this movie is going to end but also comical wise the movie is too predictable. They surely didn't came up with a whole lot of original moments and because everything happens in such a predictable manner, the comedy also just doesn't always work out.

The movie could had been a better one, had it handled its subject of an interracial relationship better. That way the movie could perhaps had send out a message but it doesn't really does so now. The movie doesn't take away any stereotypes, instead it only sort of confirms them and it happily does so, in order to provide the movie with racial-typed humor. Somehow I have the feeling that it perhaps could had worked out better had the guy been black and the girl white and so her parents, who they are visiting, as was the case in the original movie this movie got based on; "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", staring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, which was also a drama rather than a comedy. Even though I haven't seen that movie yet I still am sure of it that that movie its theme worked out better, perhaps also because it was a '60's movie when interracial relationships obviously were still a bigger issue. Seriously, when I take a black girl or Asian or whatever home one of these my parents surely won't make a big issue out of it at all. So isn't this a movie a bit too outdated already with its theme and only relevant had it been made about 40 years ago? That is if the film-makers intentions were to take away the stereotypes and reluctances and intolerability of people towards interracial relationship but I have the idea that the film-makers simply dropped this idea and intentions and went for a simple full-blood comedy instead.

I haven't seen Bernie Mac in an awful lot of movies, also since he started out pretty late white his acting career but so far I have always liked him in his comical roles. He plays it serious and sarcastic rather than over-the-top funny which makes him such a great and hilarious actor in my opinion. It's also mostly his movie in my opinion and Asthon Kutcher gets pushed more to the background by him, even though Ashton Kutcher surely ain't a bad actor either, no matter what other people always say about him.

A comedy you can surely do without but when you decide to watch it you'll still be most likely lightly entertained by it.

6/10

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And it's still funny and romantic. Bernie Mac, Ashton kutcher and Zoë Zaldaña had a great chemistry in the screen.