I'm done with Cube

Cube … you've strayed so far from your roots. Where is the man of my youth who advocated for more riots in L.A. and dropped albums with titles like AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted? And who told him that he could act? That person should be taken out behind the woodshed. How does the idea of Ice Cube being subjected to cheesy Elmer Fudd-like antics draw so many people?\nThe movie starts us off where "Are We There Yet?" left off, but you needn't see the first. Ice Cube takes us through the basics in a monologue, setting up poorly staged antics in a too-small apartment, including the introduction of the two children as well as two more on the way. \nThe cramped quarters lead our hero to provide a real home for his burgeoning family, setting up poorer antics in a beautiful old home infested with every problem a home-owner could face. Crumbling foundation, dry rot, termites, vermin infestations, bats, blown electrical work, no insulation, failing windows and doors … the predictability and implausibility never end, and the laughs never start.\nSorry, but I don't see Cube as a New England countryside dweller who lets John C. McGinley's character swindle him out of $100,000 or so and forgiving him on the notion that the swindling helped build a family. \nThe old Cube should have killed the white devil on the spot. Anyone with a brainstem would have sued such a swindler back into the Jurassic Period, which, for all the budding paleontologists out there, was between 150 million and 200 million years ago.\nAside from that, moviegoers might also find plot holes big enough to drive trucks through, terrible special effects, obvious storylines and weak performances by more seasoned actors than Ice Cube.\nGiven my disillusionment, distaste and the movie's structural problems, you'd be right to expect an 'F' grade. But the aforementioned McGinley saves the film from the f-bomb. \nHis performance reminds of an early Will Ferrell: multifaceted, impervious to his preposterous nature and crazy enough to concoct a character that served as a power-walking alternate in the 1994 Goodwill Games in Russia. \nDon't know who McGinley is? I didn't either. (Enter IMDB.com) He plays Dr. Cox (the show's best character) on the ever-brilliant "Scrubs," or you might remember him as Bob Slidell in "Office Space." \nOther than that, the acting is putrid, as is the setup and plot. It turns out the pleasure really is all on that side of the table, Bob.