'GUESS WHO' HAS MORE ON ITS PLATE THAN JOKES.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THERE ARE those whose knees will jerk and voices will rise in cries of ``travesty'' over ``Guess Who.'' They'll think that this modern comic switcheroo on the 1967 interracial marriage drama ``Guess Who's Coming to Dinner'' somehow demeans an important film on, if no longer a hot-button subject, at least one that can still raise temperatures.

Such folks would be terribly wrong. Forget its undeserved Oscars and beside-the-point cachet as the last Hepburn-Tracy team-up; ``Dinner'' was a smug and superficial slab of self-congratulating melodrama (a more hard-hitting film about overcoming prejudice, ``In the Heat of the Night,'' deservedly beat it in the best picture race).

The new ``Guess Who,'' on the other hand, is not afraid to draw real blood, both on the ethnic clash and, perhaps more unusual for a studio romantic comedy these days, relationship fronts.

I don't want to oversell the Bernie Mac/Ashton Kutcher version. It does fall back on semi-desperate physical shtick at times, and entire plot threads are lifted wholesale from ``Meet the Parents.'' But those expecting an African-American take on ``Meet the Fockers'' or ``My Big Fat Greek Wedding'' won't find a single toilet joke or ethnic caricature on display. This might be to the movie's commercial detriment, but it certainly says a lot for the integrity of director Kevin Rodney Sullivan (``How Stella Got Her Groove Back'') and the film's assorted writers and producers.

The main joke, of course, is that instead of an idealized Sidney Poitier trying to get his new girlfriend's white parents to accept him, it's a typically flawed Kutcher character meeting his longer-term love's African-American folks for the first time.

Mac's Percy Jones, a loan officer for a suburban New Jersey bank, has already run a credit check on this Simon Green his daughter Theresa (Zoe Saldana) is bringing home for her parents' 25th anniversary celebration (Judith Scott is Percy's wife, Marilyn). The young New York money manager passes with flying colors, but of course the credit report is color blind.

Simon knows that Theresa has not dropped the Caucasian bomb and, of course, Mac's expressions when Percy discovers that his baby loves a white boy are priceless. The racial thing, though, is neither overplayed nor brushed aside, and presented in both good-natured and appropriately squirm-inducing contexts (the actual dinner-table sequence has to be the most uncomfortable thing seen in a studio comedy for years, and bravo for that).

What bugs Percy more is that he pegs Simon as a liar right off the bat - and he's right. But Simon isn't a bad guy, really. And intimidating, often incorrect Percy ... well, he really loves his family. Theresa, too, though lovely and sweet and sympathetically stuck in the middle, has character flaws that she likely doesn't even recognize.

Indeed, ``Guess Who'' turns out to be less about race than about honesty between couples. It's not about the usual romantic comedy problem of contrived misunderstanding, but the real-life problem of miscommunication, both intentional and inadvertent.

Oh, and in case I haven't mentioned it yet, the movie is consistently funny, sometimes hilarious. Some things indeed have gotten better since the 1960s. Movies usually aren't included in that group, but in this case, I'd much rather come to ``Guess Who'' than ``Dinner.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

GUESS WHO - Three stars

(PG-13: racism, language)

Starring: Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher, Zoe Saldana, Judith Scott.

Director: Kevin Rodney Sullivan.

Running time: 1 hr. 45 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Comic remake of ``Guess Who's Coming to Dinner'' reverses the racial situation - and despite some lame slapstick, remains surprisingly real about its color, romantic and family issues.

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Ashton Kutcher, left, and Bernie Mac make strange bedfellows in ``Guess Who,'' a comic remake of ``Guess Who's Coming to Dinner'' that reverses the races.