Now, was there ever a chance that Are We Done Yet? — a sequel to 2005’s $82 million-grossing Are We There Yet? — was going to be a critics’ darling? No, probably not. But the first film was a harmless enough family comedy about besieged masculinity and eventual maturation. It had its moments of diverting amusement, and it actually told a linear story in some loose, relatable sense. This sub-moronic re-up, though, is completely divorced from any sort of reality (even of its own invention) and totally mind-numbing, even at well under 90 minutes.

Scrubs‘ John C. McGinley, above left), Nick’s dream home becomes a nightmare.

That Are We Done Yet? runs on comedy of the predictable is surely no surprise, but Hank Nelken’s script is especially atrocious, a desultory mix of slapstick and bland bickering, powered by mind-boggling contradictions in character. You know going in that there will be: a) toys stepped on; b) a leaky roof; c) a falling chandelier; d) a comic electrocution; and e) Ice Cube falling through said roof. And there are, courtesy of Steve Carr’s reliably awful direction. What you don’t expect, necessarily, are bits involving a talking raccoon, a deer whose eyes bug out in cartoonish fashion and Ice Cube wrestling a giant sturgeon.

Still, it’s the breathtaking manner in which the movie so immediately announces its complete gracelessness and lack of respect for its audience’s intelligence that is most amazing. After ananimated opening credits sequence that trumps the entire combined feature for imagination and sheer entertainment value, Ice Cube’s character is awakened by his alarm clock, at 5 a.m., to an outdoors that is completely bright and spilling sunlight into the room. Nothing gets much better from there, in either attention to detail or certainly cleverness. Despite its cheery pitch, this most certainly isn’t one for the entire family.

Are We Done Yet? comes housed in a regular Amray case and presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Distributor Sony tries to put a nice face on matters, with supplemental extras consisting of a five-minute featurette about McGinley’s character, an interactive quiz on the movie, three minutes of bloopers (during which McGinley goes spitfire, and directs himself), and a short, seven-minute making-of featurette. F (Movie) C (Disc)