PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 04/01/05)

Beware the comedy with good intentions. Standing the premise of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner on its head by making a white guy the new black sheep in a family has brutally comic potential. But can today's focus group-beholden Hollywood do anything but walk on eggshells with this stuff?

This is the plot summary: Ashton Kutcher = Nervous Son-in-Law/Bernie Mac = Hothead Father-in-Law. They're both plenty of fun to watch, but Mac may be cast too much to type. In Meet the Parents, De Niro was the psychopath with a hidden heart of gold. Mac can't help but be the other way around. We know his angry rants are a put on by a guy just as lovable as the Cowardly Lion. How nice it would be to see him transcend these generic vehicles and become a younger Bill Murray.

What's groan-worthy about Guess Who is that you could do the play-by-play from your seat. There are moments when it seems Kutcher might look right into the camera and say, “Ready to see me walk right into another impossibly stupid faux pas?” The same sort of junior high school presumptions around which sitcoms are built (guys are like this, girls are like that) are milked relentlessly. Can two straight men have tension between them in a comedy these days without having to share a bed?

One scene may go down in history. Kutcher is at the dinner table with the family and, despite being sober, he manages to reveal that his own family likes to tell “black jokes.” Mac dares him to tell some. The audience pricks up its ears in anticipation, clearly recognizing the set-ups. But the punchlines of each joke are blatantly, awkwardly watered-down into something like expressions of affection! As if the Kutcher character's family sits around at home ribbing each other about how endearing black folks are. What do you call black and white people who find this stuff tiring? For real.

—Kevin Allison