MOVIE CRITIQUE:
I was terribly disappointed with "Barbershop 2." This movie lacks most of the charm and the good natured humor that was present in the original film. The first "Barbershop" movie was fresh and funny and had a tremendous crossover appeal to White audiences. In fact, I enjoyed the original movie so much that I placed it on my 10 Best Movies of 2002 list .

How to follow up a surprise breakout hit like that?

Well, certainly not this way. This new edition has committed three cardinal sins, all of which are, regrettably, far too common with $equel$ that hope to ca$h in on the succe$$ of the original film.

First of all, Barbershop 2: Back in Business" just isn't all that funny.
There has to be a reason for making a sequel, something that will make it funny and fresh and not at all manufactured in its approach to its characters or its humor.

The original "Barbershop" film was a whole, complete story that didn't necessitate a sequel, so there had better be a compelling reason to make another film other than some flimsy excuse that will be apparent to all the members in the audience that everyone connected with making this sequel is only interested in hustling another buck by piggybacking on the popularity of the original film.

For example, while Cedric the Entertainer reprises his still occasionally very funny role as Eddie, the oldest barber in the shop and the man who carries the torch of tradition for Calvin as the son of the founder, his humor isn't nearly as cutting edge funny or as topically current as it was in the first movie.

Unfortunately for a comedy, Eddie also serves as a historical reference point for Calvin to recall the high (or low) points in Black history like the Chicago race riots of 1968 or the time when the Rev. Martin Luther King led a protest march through Chicago. While this may be very important to aficionados of Black history, I am not at all convinced that it has a place in a movie trying to masquerade as a comedy.

Secondly, if you are going to reintroduce those characters that we grew to love in the first film, then make them equally lovable in the second film. Calvin Palmer (Ice Cube), the lead in both of these films, has a role in the second movie that he could have phoned in. This guy sleepwalks through this film with little to say and less to do. Huh? What's the reason for this? I can't believe that they took the lead and gave him LESS to do than in the original film.

Furthermore, his wife is relegated from a supporting partner who understands her husband and still loves him in spite of his faults to a cameo role in "2" where she has less than one minute of screen time. And his baby is presented not as a person but as an argument for taking some ready cash that is being offered as a payoff for supporting a change in the area's zoning.

Finally, the directors, writers and crew forgot why the original Barbershop was a success in the first place, and that is because it had great crossover appeal to White audiences who recognized universal elements of humor, love, truth, and life in the very thoughtful first film.

Those crossover elements of appeal are very nearly invisible in this sequel. "Barbershop 2" is a movie that has been remade as being much more "Black" than the original. The noise is louder, the humor is more ethnic, and the history lessons are presented as an ode to Black suffering during the (highly regrettable) racially charged periods when Calvin's dad had a tough time trying to make a go of his business when all the stores around him were being burnt to the ground.

Thus the original very funny crossover film, "Barbershop" has been followed by a Black hip hop sequel with characters less ethnically diverse along with Black history lessons thrown in, and that's a shame.

I paid for a ticket to a comedy, not a sermon. I wanted to see real people, not cardboard characters with little development of their personalities or of their motivations. This movie will still have great appeal to most Blacks, but there may not be enough here for the larger White mainstream movie audience.
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
The crew of Calvin's barbershop, a mainstay in the Black South Side community of Chicago for two generations, are all back in business. Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer) actually has a few clients now, but this does not stop his pontificating on any and every subject that comes up for discussion.

Jimmy James (Sean Patrick Thomas) is back with clients who no doubt will risk losing more of their hair than they might have wanted to. The sultry Terri Jones (Eve) is still cutting hair with the big bear of a man, Dinka (Leonard Earl Howze), wistfully eyeing her from an adjacent chair.

Troy Garrity (Isaac Rosenberg) still wants to be Black, but Eve finds out that he also wants to be more than this. Finding him asleep one day on the couch in the back, she starts giving him a hard time. Her criticisms are quickly muted, however, by his pulling out a book and showing her that he is studying to complete his GED high school equivalency program. This change in her understanding of him makes her look at him with new interest, a more personal interest.

With her smoldering good looks, they are soon locked in a passionate embrace. Troy apologizes to her the next day as he knows that Dinka is sweet on Eve and he doesn't want to be seen as trespassing on his friend's turf. It is only later when he finds Dinka in bed with another woman that Troy starts pursuing Eve in earnest. Their developing relationship is one of the few interesting stories in this film.

Another sideline character is played by Queen Lafitah as the owner of a beauty salon for women located right next door to Calvin's barbershop. She plays her delightfully sassy trademarked personality but is otherwise tangential to what little story line there is in this film.

The main story line concerns a new Black hustler similar to the one in the first film. Quentin Leroux (Harry J. Lennix) barges in on Calvin's business one day to tell him that he is going to open a branch of "Nappy Kutz," a up-to-the-minute happening shop, right across the street from Calvin's low key and dated shop. He promises that his barber emporium will put Calvin out of business in six months, seven tops.

Calvin and his crew are forced to watch the industrial building across the street slowly gentrify to a huge barbershop with a gigantic Nappy Kutz sign being lowered into place one day. Rumors fly around the shop like the one where the floor of the new barber shop is made of glass with an aquarium located beneath.

One night on a whim they sneak into the shop and it IS impressive. A basketball hoop with an area to shoot is located at one end of the huge store. The aquarium is not located beneath the floor, but rather is built into one wall and it is monumental. Everything is brand new, and the barber stations are all well supplied with every necessary piece of shiny brand new shaving equipment.

Calvin starts a modest refurbishing of his shop with several pieces of modern art that he hangs on the wall, but it is clear that his heart is not in this.

The political season starts and one day Alderman Brown (Robert Wisdom), the local Chicago alderman, barges in for a photo op with Leroux in tow. Calvin's barbershop has been a mainstay of the community for many years and thus it is always the starting point for each new aldermanic reelection campaign.

Later an elderly neighbor complains to him about having to move out of her apartment as it is being converted to condominiums and she won't be able to afford to live there anymore. Calvin decides to visit Alderman Brown to plead her case, and he is surprised to see Leroux's shiny blue Porsche Boxter parked out front of the darkened aldermanic offices at a time that is well after hours.

Perhaps entering more quietly that he should have, Calvin stumbles onto Leroux and Brown having a conversation in a back room of the aldermanic offices. An open brown envelope with a large wad of bills inside is quickly buried underneath a magazine, but not soon enough to avoid capturing Calvin's attention.

Leroux offers Calvin $200,000 to come down to a hearing to speak in favor of a zoning change for the area. Apparently, Nappy Kutz is just the opening salvo in the gentrification of the whole block by Leroux, who is not a barber, but a developer. Leroux points out to Calvin how nice it would be to have him and his wife set for life along with a college education being provided for his young son.

Calvin promises to attend the hearing. That money would certainly help him out of having to chase the dollar every day and still coming home dog tired each and every night with little to show for it.