Review

Review Date: 8-February-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004)

To the credit of writer Don D. Scott, "Barbershop 2" doesn't sacrifice its predecessor's unpretentious warmth for the grasping attempt at "bigger and better" that dooms most sequels. Once again, the story revolves around family man, business owner, and community leader Calvin Palmer (Ice Cube) fighting to save the lower-class Chicago neighborhood that defines his life; and, as before, he is joined by a crew of bantering barbers on their own journeys toward love, happiness, and maturity in gentle, largely undeveloped story arcs. Bringing back the original cast and playing to the first movie's simple strengths was a good idea, but "Barbershop 2" also inherits a feeling of recurring, TV-like mediocrity and insignificance. Faced with the challenge of making an established small-town tale suitable for a big-screen telling, it takes absolutely no risks and introduces no new concepts, and thereby feels more like a rerun than a sequel.

"Barbershop 2" picks up about a year after "Barbershop" left off. Well, to be exact, it picks up about 35 years before, in a flashback detailing how the shop's resident curmudgeon (Cedric the Entertainer) received his position from Calvin's father. This scene serves as a good reminder of what the series is all about (the importance of looking out for one another) and leads nicely into a view of the modern bustle of the establishment, where the aspiring ex-con (Michael Ealy) continues to vent frustration on the lone white guy (Troy Garity), the African immigrant (Leonard Earl Howze) still pines for the single female (Eve), and the same old men forever play checkers in the window. In short, it's life as pleasantly usual until construction begins across the street on a salon franchise called Nappy Cutz, whose role as the incarnation of evil is attested by aggressive marketing tactics and embodied in a pair of smarmy sellouts (Robert Wisdom and Henry Lennix) with naught but lucre on their minds. Calvin's subsequent battle with this new (but familiar) nemesis brings him into close contact with his former brainiac employee (Sean Patrick Thomas), who now works in politics. (I should also mention that Queen Latifah makes periodic, irrelevant appearances in preparation for her spin-off, "Beauty Shop," coming soon to a theater near you.)

The overt good-naturedness of the picture precludes too much tension about whether something really bad is going to happen, but that doesn't excuse its complete lack of inventiveness. The diverting arguments that take place in the barbershop are a welcome echo of the original film, but why must Calvin go through the same money struggles and temptations all over again? Why must he deliver a rehash of a million other Man of the People speeches for the big finale? While painfully aware of the horror of avaricious, impersonal megacorporations taking over the world (insidiously, pandering to people's lowest instincts), I would like to have seen the hero confronted with a fresh and, perhaps, more intimate challenge this time around, especially since I was already invested in the characters. Why not (for example) have the barbers threaten their happy little universe from within, out of their own doubts and independent of outside influence? Or have Calvin, inspired by the events of the first movie, lead his fellow South Side business owners to the lessons that he has learned? As it stands, there's nothing new, no advancement or revelation on anybody's part, so the film leaves no lasting impression. While it's still pleasant to visit Calvin's barbershop, its effect is less than permanent.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.