Guess Who: Critic Reviews

Putting an interracial love story on screen may have been bold in 1967, but by now it should be more casual than it is. The skittish, focus-grouped blandness of Guess Who comes through in the flavorlessness of the romance.

This loose, pointless remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner at least suggests that American racial attitudes have relaxed since 1967.

This feeble comedy ranks about an 11 on the yawn-o-meter.

Might provide a much-needed fix for Mac's most ardent fans, but they'll have to wait for a star vehicle that fully exploits the range of his comic gifts.

It's never a good sign in a comedy when the characters laugh harder than the audience at their own jokes.

If you're looking for a meaningful consideration of the intricacies that come with introducing your white boyfriend to your black family, you're probably eating nachos at the wrong multiplex.

The film is predictable and its humor is tension free.

A disappointing retread of a bunch of better movies.

There's never a question how things will turn out. (If you don't know: Recent Hollywood movies about interracial romance usually turn out well if the guy is white and almost always end tragically if he's black.)

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan over-orchestrates each verbal and visual gag, and such heavy-handed helming robs Guess Who of any element of surprise.

If it falls betwixt and between hilarious and meaningful, consider that a testament to where we are as a culture on this topic: able to laugh at the jokes and still vulnerable to our fears.

Guess Who works efficiently on its chosen level.

I'm not opposed to drawing from the well of movies past. But to remake one with such a dated and specific point of view, one that relies on the interracial relationship as hot button, is both lazy and uncomfortably nostalgic.

What's not to like about a movie that concludes that although race can divide people, love can unite them?

It's been a long time since the words 'Ashton Kutcher' and 'hilarious' have appeared in the same sentence, but they'll have to get reacquainted. Kutcher and costar Bernie Mac make a terrific comic team.

A consciously lightweight romantic comedy that pokes fun at racial stereotyping, it starts out a bit shaky but begins to cook as stars Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher find their chemistry, and by the film's end it's become pretty darn likable.

Twenty minutes in, we know where the movie is going and, as a result, it loses momentum in the final half-hour.

A film that could have wryly dealt with matters of race, or simply could have been funnier, had it possessed a clearer template than a star pairing and a truncated title.

Guess Who uses two-fifths of the title and gives us one-tenth the entertainment value.

There is no comedy without conflict, and conflict only plays funny when it's a fair fight. The writers and director didn't do Mac any favors in letting him play a guy who doesn't recognize his own blind spots, and comically wrestle with them.

Theresa has neglected to tell said parents that Simon is just about the whitest boy alive, an omission that causes what passes for comedy to occur when her dad finds out.

Let's just say that, on the charge of comedic intentions, the cinematic jury is still out.

The timing of nearly every gag is just half a beat off, and that half-beat is a killer.

It offers a few solid laughs and will provoke some smiles, but there's too much of a tendency to go for obvious, largely unfunny humor when something more subtle would have satisfied.

Mix in a pair of inspired performances by Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher, and you've got a certified crowd-tickler with a lot more substance than the last Focker family gathering.