Two years ago, a decent, little comedy called Barbershop came to theaters. It had a few likeable, if somewhat clichéd characters, and a light, sentimental message about the importance of community. But it also had a barbershop filled with witty, edgy banter that was always engaging and often politically incorrect, most memorably with Cedric the Entertainer's riff on Rosa Parks. The film went on to gross over six times its budget in the U.S. alone, making a sequel inevitable.
So now we have Barbershop 2, a sequel that doesn't quite cut it. Ice Cube returns as Calvin, the owner of his father's old barbershop, and once again, the shop is in jeopardy. Only this time, the threat comes from the Nappy Cutz corporation, a black version of Supercuts, that's moving in across the street.
Barbershop 2 might have maintained a sense of urgency had it focused on that threat. Instead, it unwisely chooses to meander through a series of subplots involving each of its eight returning characters. And, as if eight characters weren't enough already, it throws in several more simply to ensure that we never spend enough time with any one person to care what happens to them.
Queen Latifah offers her current box-office draw to the movie just to plug her upcoming Barbershop spin-off, Beauty Shop. Her role in the film, billed as a special appearance (which amounts to little more than a cameo), is otherwise useless. She may as well have spent the film standing in the shop's window, holding a sign that reads, "Beauty Shop, coming to theaters, 2004."
The movie attempts to exploit the original film's funniest character, Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer), giving him far more screen time, including a series of flashbacks to the '60s and '70s. But, many of these flashbacks, particularly one of a former love interest on a subway, are intrusive and anti-climactic. Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan also inexplicably changes from color to black-and-white and vice versa at odd times during these scenes. (One sequence was even black-and-white but with colorized clothing). Eddie still offers as many laughs as he did in the first film. But since this time he's there twice as long, it makes him half as funny.
The ending tries to recapture some of the heart of the original, but with little success. An unlikely coincidence leads Calvin to a meeting with his conspiring antagonists. A flawed and confusing twist then leads Calvin to give a speech about working-class heroism in front of the city council and the whole community. The audience at my screening clapped and cheered, but I wonder if they did so because they understood and agreed with what was happening, or because the sentimental music was swelling.
The film has its share of funny dialogue, but nothing quite as good as the banter in the original. Eddie riffs on R. Kelly, Michael Jackson and even the D.C. snipers. In the case of the latter, some white people might be offended by the implication that the snipers were a rare example of black people reaching white levels of violence. But I imagine most of those folks won't be seeing Barbershop 2 in the first place.
As for myself, I saw the film with a multi-ethnic audience, and for the most part, everyone enjoyed it. Barbershop 2 will do at least as well as the original, making a Barbershop 3 inevitable. But I hope I'm wrong. After one bad experience at a barbershop, I prefer not to return.