WHAT MEN WANT

Name: WHAT MEN WANT
Item: WHAT MEN WANT
Author: Aaron Minguez

"Heavily Marred Comedy About the Battle of the Sexes"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

WHAT MEN WANT is an R-rated remake of the 2000 Mel Gibson movie, WHAT WOMEN WANT, with an African-American cast in the lead roles. Ali, a successful sports agent, is passed up at her male-dominated, white agency for a well-deserved promotion as Partner. At her friend’s bachelorette party, Ali is fed a mysterious tea by a weird fortune teller hired to bring some entertainment to the party. At a dance party afterwards, she accidentally hits her head. The next morning at the hospital, she wakes up and finds she can hear men’s thoughts. She decides to use her new power to sign the next basketball superstar, but she goes too far.

WHAT MEN WANT has some funny clean moments and a few entertaining plot twists that add to the comedy. However, too much of the comedy is over the top. Even worse, the movie is heavily marred by lots of R-rated foul language, strong sexual content, explicit sex toy nudity, politically correct content, and non-Christian and anti-Christian elements. The non-Christian elements dilute the morally uplifting, redemptive premise and content in WHAT MEN WANT.

Content:

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Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong mixed pagan worldview with strong hedonistic/immoral behavior that’s not always rebuked and sometimes even lauded, with a solid moral premise resolving the plot problems in the third act and some Christian, redemptive elements such as forgiveness is promoted, and a church wedding scene that goes off the rails, but those positive elements and premise are diluted by non-Christian and anti-Christian elements, such as people (including a side character who self-identifies as a Christian who follows Jesus and “the Lord”) consult a weird occult fortune teller who sometimes gets things right and sells drugs on the side, the side character who’s a Christian is a bit of a phony, and some politically correct elements promote perverse sin and contain left-leaning feminist sentiments regarding women, men and a black woman climbing a white corporate structure

Foul Language:

At least, 124 obscenities (47 or so “f” words include several during end credits), two GDs, nine light profanities, one “n” word during end credits, and an obscene gesture using a finger on each hand

Violence:

Comic violence includes large rubber male sex toy during a dance party at a bar hits comic heroine in the rear end and knocks her down, comic heroine hits her head hard twice and that allows her to hear men’s thoughts and then not hear them, a comical melee breaks out in church during a wedding as would-be bride, and another woman learn of their groom and husband’s infidelities, and during sex scene woman partner keeps trying to choke and manhandle the man because she has little empathy

Sex:

Partially depicted fornication in one scene, implied fornication in another scene, multiple sexual references include sex toys and sex toy decorations during a dance party at a bar (the decorations also show up during end credits as background art), a buff man the comic heroine is wanting to fornicate with turns out to be involved in sadomasochism, and she walks out in disgust when she sees his equipment, brief suggestive dancing, movie promotes sinful behavior through homosexual assistant of the comic heroine, the homosexual assistant finds romance with another office worker, and it’s learned in one scene that a husband has been having a crude perverse affair on the side

Nudity:

Multiple images of sex toy decorations featuring male organs, partial rear female nudity of female dancers moving suggestively, two other female dancers moving suggestively wear short shorts, upper male nudity in a couple scenes, and images of female cleavage

Alcohol Use:

Alcohol use and drunkenness in at least one scene

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking but fortune teller sells and uses illicit drugs on the side, and there are three or more references to smoking marijuana for recreational purposes by her and other characters; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Strong miscellaneous immorality includes gambling during a private poker game, lying, deceit, comic heroine manipulates her new boyfriend (a widower) and his young son to give an erroneous impression and impress the father of a potential big client, but she suffers consequences and realizes her error so she repents and seeks forgiveness, comic heroine treats men as a means to an end and story is mostly about how she overcomes that problem, some sexist and racist behavior occurs, a man tries to cheat his company by stealing a big client.

More Detail:

WHAT MEN WANT is an R-rated remake of the 2000 Mel Gibson movie, WHAT WOMEN WANT, with an African-American cast in the lead roles, where a black female sports agent is granted a wish, in unexpected ways, to relate better to men so she can become a partner at the agency where she works. WHAT MEN WANT has some funny clean moments and a couple entertaining plot twists that add to the comedy, but it’s heavily marred by lots of R-rated foul language, strong sexual content, explicit sex toy nudity, politically correct content, and non-Christian and anti-Christian elements that dilute its Christian, redemptive content.

Taraji P. Davis stars as Ali Davis (her father, a boxing trainer, wanted a boy). Ali is a successful sports agent who’s passed up at her male-dominated, white agency for a well-deserved promotion as Partner. The boss, who’s a bit condescending, says she has trouble dealing with male clients and rightfully tells her she needs to land a big fish in Major League Baseball, the NFL or the NBA like the other Partners.

At her friend’s bachelorette party a couple days later, the maid of honor brings in a weird-looking fortune teller to tell their futures. The fortune teller, who sells illicit drugs on the side, gives Ali some strange tea to drink to help Ali with her male issues. Later, she and her friends attend a dance party at a bar, where Ali is accidentally knocked over and hits her head on the front bar where the bartenders stand.

Ali wakes up the next morning in the hospital and learns she can hear men’s thoughts. Her new ability is annoying at first, but a talk with the fortune teller at her office convinces Ali to use her new ability to sign a college basketball phenom with the NBA and lucrative sponsorship contracts. The only problem is the young man’s quirky father, who likes Ali but is skeptical because she doesn’t have a family.

To get around the father’s objections, Ali decides to pass off the handsome, widowed bartender with whom she just had a fling and his young son as her own husband and child. She gets away with the ruse, but what will happen if the bartender finds out about it?

WHAT MEN WANT has some funny clean moments and a couple entertaining plot twists that add to the comedy. Too much of the comedy is over the top, however, despite these positive elements and the movie’s morally uplifting, redemptive premise and ending.

Also, unlike the Mel Gibson movie, WHAT MEN WANT has a hard R rating for strong, excessive objectionable content. Thus, it has a very strong mixed pagan worldview with strong hedonistic/immoral behavior that’s not always rebuked and sometimes even lauded. Happily, the movie has a solid moral premise resolving the plot problems in the third act and some Christian, redemptive elements. For example, Ali apologizes and seeks forgiveness for the wrongs she does. Also, her friend does have a church wedding, but the wedding goes off the rails when Ali reveals her discovery that the groom was cheating on her friend and intends to cheat on her after they’re married. The movie’s positive elements and premise are also diluted by non-Christian and anti-Christian content. For example, one of her friends is a white woman who superficially touts her Christian faith. She’s a bit of a phony, though perhaps a sincere one. Of course, the Christian friend and other people are shown consulting the weird fortune teller even after the bachelorette party.

WHAT MEN WANT also contains some politically correct elements promoting homosexual sin and containing left-leaning feminist sentiments regarding women, men and a woman climbing a white corporate structure. This kind of identity politics is filled with falsehoods and mistaken social reforms that sometimes explicitly contradict what the Bible teaches.

Finally, WHAT MEN WANT is heavily marred by lots of R-rated foul language, including many “f” words and crude sexual references. It also has strong sexual content and explicit nudity involving sex toys and sex toy decorations featuring the male sex organ. The sex toy nudity even reappears during the end credits!

MOVIEGUIDE® thinks the effort to turn WHAT MEN WANT into a hard R version of Mel Gibson’s movie probably will fail. Adult moviegoers should read our CONTENT section to see exactly what they’re letting themselves see, before spending their money to see WHAT MEN WANT. The movie’s positive qualities aren’t strong enough for moviegoers who honestly want to see a really enjoyable, uplifting modern comedy.

Watch WHAT MEN WANT →

Quality:

- Content: -3