watching movies one cup at a time

Family movie. Plain and simple. No great aspirations here, just some harmless fun. People often talk about Cuba Gooding Jr.’s descent into movie mush after his Oscar win (Daddy Day Camp, Boat Trip, etc.) but he does manage a good role in a good movie. And even tho this isn’t American Gangster or As Good As It Gets (yes, he’s in both), he’s playing the lead, his character is a successful, decent guy, and the movie is light-hearted fun. I see no harm done. He never slips into any stereotypes or gets put in any overly-humiliating situations. It’s mostly just the usual “fish-out-of-water” jokes.

The movie also features one of the last performances by James Coburn before he died. And he is really good in this as usual, a terrific presence on screen and fun to watch. Someone who I was rather surprised to see was Sisqo. Remember him? He sure dropped off the face of the earth. I’m guessing some manager/agent just stuck him in here to get his “movie career” going. I don’t really buy it that he plays a dentist, but no big deal. I’ll live.

The story is set in Alaska (thought it was filmed in Canada) and shows some beautiful frozen countryside with fantastic mountain shots. And somehow this tiny town up in Alaska has trendy snowboarders with dreads and orange hair. Huh? And also a smokin’ hot babe working the local restaurant, cuz they’re so common out in the rural wilderness, right? The film starts in warm, sunny Miami, which sets up the dramatic climate contrast. It’s always nice to see shots in sunny Miami.

For light-hearted fun in a movie you can watch with your kids, it’s definitely not bad. It was directed by Brian Levant who has pretty much made a career out of this kind of movie. He directed the Ice Cube movie Are We There Yet? as well as both (horrible) Flintstone live-action movies. Someone’s gotta do it I guess.