Everybody's a critic - 'Bringing Down the House'

Three and a half stars

"Bringing Down The House," is immensely enjoyable. Martin and Latifah's screen charisma and camaraderie are absolutely hysterical. The two make the perfect pair. Both actors play off each other's comic endeavors so well.

Many of the scenes reminded me of when Martin appeared on "Saturday Night Live." The stunts he did then made him "A wild and crazy guy," as they do now.

Martin and Latifah's characters meet in a legal chatroom. He, being a tax lawyer, gives her advice and ends up asking her to his place for dinner. She, an escaped convict, finds him an easy mark. She uses him to help her clear her name.

When he discovers who she really is, all he wants to do is get her out of his life as quickly as possible.

There are half a dozen sub-plots going on in the film. The film concludes with everything fitting into one piece.

-Stephanie Williams, baker

One and a half stars

This movie is inane.

The rendezvous between e-mail communicators Steve Martin, playing a sad tax lawyer, and Queen Latifah as an escaped felon is funny. Latifah's character blackmails Martin into helping her prove her innocence. The convoluted plot makes Latifah his kid's nanny. In the process, she solves his daughter's problems, teaches his son to read with pornographic books, becomes the love-sex object of his law associate, instructs Martin to hang loose and shows him how to be sexy in order to win back his ex-wife.

Extremely offensive are the ex-sister-in-law who romances elderly dying men for their money and the repulsive, senseless cat-fight between this trite, vacant person and Latifah.

Perhaps I am too straight to understand or appreciate multi-layered racial, generational, ethnic and sexual humor. The movie is trivial and shallow with a few redeemingly hilarious moments.

- Joan Slaughter, retiree

Two and a half stars

"Bringing Down the House" does not live up to its name. Though the chemistry between Steve Martin and Queen Latifa is great, the use of racial slurs and stereotyping really brings this movie down.

You can usually tell the quality of a movie by the audience reaction, and if you went by our audience's reaction, you would not pay the high-dollar theater price to go to this movie. Movies that really grab you will keep the line for popcorn refills short and infrequent, where during this movie it seemed that everyone left the theater at least once if not more often.

All the funny scenes were used to make the trailer, leaving little for the rest of the movie.

- Barb Gleason, nurse