Apparently based on the older film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? with Sidney Poitier and Spencer Tracy (I thought it was a movie based on that board game where you had to match up the people based on what they looked like…of course I’m the only one who remembers that game so I’m in the minority there), the remake flips the racial pole (the original was a black guy coming to a white family which was obviously more potent/powerful in the 60’s) so that Ashton Kutcher meets his future black in-laws and is scared to death of Bernie Mac, his future father-in-law. While that remake concept is obvious, I also felt like I was watching Father of the Bride (Steve Martin is a penny pincher and so is Mac) and Meet the Parents (Mac checked up on Kutcher using his “contacts”Â, lots of bad things happen to Kutcher as he tries to impress Mac and they both piss of their significant others by lying (but Mac doesn’t get off easy like Robert DeNiro did)). Despite all of this (or maybe because of it?), it was still very touching and VERY funny (living room football anyone? don’t forget the $50 vodka!). Kutcher’s character was raised by a hard-working single mother which created a very serious character flaw in that he thought he had to help provide for any girl he was with which creates a lot of anger from his fiancée (nicely done by Zoe Saldana (whom I didn’t recognize until recently from a half dozen films like Pirates and Center Stage!)) near the end of the film and which is an interesting psychological analyzation if you look at it carefully enough*. But hey, just laugh and you’re guaranteed a good time. And you’ll learn which black jokes never to tell in public…overall a very enjoyable film with lots of good comedy.

*What is being said about single mother parenting? Is there a flaw inherent there no matter how hard the mother works? That no matter how hard the mother works, there is still going to be that lack of a fatherly influence that balances out the estrogenical example set forth by the hard-working mother? Just curious y’all…