Movie Poster Review: Are We Done Yet?

New poster from ex-NWA rapper Ice Cube’s film fails on many levels

Few had high hopes for the latest poster from Sony Pictures’ print marketing team, but they somehow failed to meet even the most meager expectations. This poster is a disaster of promotion; serving only to discourage those who see it from seeing “Are We Done Yet?”

The poster’s biggest misstep is its tagline: “From the studio that brought you “Are We There Yet.” Even if the postermaker didn’t write it, he or she should have refused to use this awful line and replaced it with almost any sentence imaginable. The sentence presumably is there to indicate that although the director and writers have changed, this is in fact the sequel to “Are We There Yet?” It also makes the ludicrous implicit claim that someone saw the first film and would want to see another one. But phrasing it like that just points out the fact that the key people involved with the first film are gone. Doubtless, they responded to the studio’s request to produce another one with derisive laughter. The tagline also implies that someone would be enticed by the continuity of studios, as though someone who saw “Are We There Yet” was impressed with the job the studio did distributing the initial film and would want to see what they did with the second one. Did anyone think about this before committing the sentence to the poster?

The featured scene itself does little to encourage anyone to see the movie and only serves to promote bad ladder safety. Rather than focusing on the female lead’s cleavage or something funny about the movie, the poster merely gives us a startled and dismayed Ice Cube climbing a ladder. His family — rather than hold onto the precarious ladder — just smiles at us with their cold, dead eyes. That “O” isn’t going to hold the thing for long, and the ladder has a troubling bend to it. People: this is no way to do ladder work. There will be a lot of broken necks in America if we follow this poster’s lead.

But safety issues aside, are we to believe Ice Cube is the only draw this movie has? Why is the ladder more prominent than any of the film’s other actors, or even the bug-eyed raccoon? John McGinley’s in the movie — where’s he? It looks like Ice Cube gathered all his tools and his Compton Cougars jersey and is trying to climb to heaven to escape his embarrassing family of unknown supporting actors. If the movie’s star wants out, where does that leave its viewers? Is there a pole to hell we can slide down if the blandness of the comedy gets to be too much? One can only hope.

And back to the raccoon: why is it there? Maybe the postermaker thought that Cube, the ladder and his boring family won’t be enough to lure movie watchers, but toss a raccoon in there and who knows? Yes, raccoons have been used to great comedic effect in Steve Zahn films (Safe Men, Saving Silverman, etc.), but Steve Zahn’s not even in this movie. And who decided to makes its eyes all big and cartoony? The raccoon looks pretty realistic in the preview, so why go with this ridiculous-looking creature on the poster? Did someone look at a poster draft with the real raccoon and say, “that raccoon’s not funny enough, intern, can’t you punch it up a bit in Photoshop?” Clearly, yes, and the intern did a crappy job.

Basically, this poster is a disaster eclipsed only by the film’s potential for unwatchability. Don’t look at this poster.

.5 stars out of 5

Bonus quote/why I pretend it is still 1992:

“Strollin' to your suburb house, and I douse with gas, now who's cleanin' up trash?” Ice Cube, The Predator