Barbershop 2: Back in Business

Starring: Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer

Director: Kevin Rodney Sullivan

Rating: PG-13 for language, sexual material and brief drug references

Playing at: Great Escape 12

Grade: C

When the original Barbershop was released in the fall of 2002, it offered a fresh and funny take on an urban business and its employees. Now comes Barbershop 2: Back in Business, which should have been subtitled Going Through the Motions. This is a pale imitation that never takes off and never really seems to mind. Most of the original cast return, including Ice Cube as barbershop owner Calvin and Cedric the Entertainer as the aging barber Eddie. Barbershop 2 picks up with the business under siege by a rival barbershop opening across the street. The rival stores owner wants Calvin to sell his shop, and convince other businesses to do the same, so he can control the neighborhood. And that about does it for the plot. Barbershop 2 feels more like an extended improv than it does a finished product. Relationships continue to be explored, with the best being a budding relationship between Ricky (Michael Ealy) and Terri (Eve), but nothing really seems resolved. Instead, the film just wanders from one topic to another. Even the films major resolution seems like an afterthought. The lack of focus is appropriate since everyone seems to be in a daze and just there to collect a paycheck. Even Cedric the Entertainer, so effective in the first film, seems to be on autopilot even though his character is given considerably longer amount of screen time here. Queen Latifah and Kenan Thompson are asked to provide the franchise with new blood, but neither succeeds. Thompson, best known for the Nickelodeon variety series Kenan and Kel, never gels with the rest of the cast, while Latifah as the owner of the beauty shop next door doesnt have any screen time that hasnt already been seen in the trailer. That probably doesnt matter, since Latifahs character has been given a spin-off film Beauty Shop, which just happened to be included in the trailers before Barbershop 2. The quick turnaround for the new film is a sign that even the producers of Barbershop realize that after only two films, this franchise doesnt have much left. Sportswriter/movie reviewer Micheal Compton is ready for Laundromat a look at the smoke-filled, washing-and-drying experience that guarantees plenty of laughs! Send him an e-mail at mcompton@bgdailynews.com to talk shop.