So much humiliation is heaped on Ice Cube in "Are We There Yet?" that he starts to resemble Ben Stiller.

Cube dresses up in a clown costume, he's drenched in vomit, his car gets demolished, a horse bucks him off, he is repeatedly outwitted by bratty children and he has to drive around in an SUV with those ridiculously flashy hubcaps - all of which adds to his appeal.

Cube has been in comedies before but usually with a glowery, forbidding, I'm-thinking-of-ways-to-hurt-you persona. "Are We There Yet?" is the first movie where he isn't in control of the situation (not coincidentally, it's also the first movie where he spends a lot of time with kids), which makes him funnier and more human.

The kids in question struck me as neither funny nor human. I have a low tolerance for isn't-the-abominable-behavior-of-children-hilarious? shtick, particularly when it involves setting people up for crimes or almost getting them killed, as happens here. These kids shouldn't be laughed at; they should be tried as adults. But Cube is hung up on their mom (Nia Long, overqualified for a role that requires her only to scream into a StarTac), so he tries to stay cool while schlepping them from Portland to Vancouver as a favor to her.

This being a family movie, you know a couple of hugs will transform the bratty kids into angels, but the way they're written, they're so hateful that they work against the movie. We're supposed to think Cube is wrong when he makes like W.C. Fields and says of children, "They're like cockroaches, except you can't squish `em." But, with these particular pre-juvenile delinquents, you're more likely to think, "Go ahead and squish `em."