Given Guess Who’s title and story concept, I was expecting a weak imitation of the Academy Award winning Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Sadly, I was wrong. Guess Who draws on the classic only in title and reversed race story concept. Instead, Guess Who chose to be a weak imitation of Meet the Parents.

Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher) plans to marry Theresa Jones (Zoe Saldana) and is now going to meet her parents, Percy (Bernie Mac) and Marilyn (Judith Scott). As you may guess, Percy dislikes Simon, but it’s not just because he’s white. In order to tone down the racial element, Guess Who brings in other issues such as completely unnecessary lies on Simon’s part, there to impress his future father-in-law, as well as sexual issues with Theresa. Sounds familiar.

Kutcher is affable enough, but fails in his attempts to play Ben Stiller. Bernie Mac plays a role that fits well for him, and one that he pulls off well enough – even though he doesn’t have much to work with. While Guess Who has its moments of humor, its jokes are generally tired and predictable.

The story conflicts, similarly, are standard and conventional. Both Simon and Percy eventually come into trouble with their respective counterparts and, of course, all is well among everyone at the end of the day. But in the process, Guess Who has little to say about either racial tolerance or marital relationships. Apologies are made by all at the finale, but all of these characters are so self-centered, I imagine there’s still going to be serious problems in both relationships.

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