by SCOTT C

This one’s pretty straightforward. If you are a big Ice Cube fan, know now that he is the star of Friday After Next, the latest installment in what has now become a laughless ordeal. Back in ’95, the original Friday didn’t do great things at the box office, but did have a healthy video rental life, good enough to spawn a second, and now a third movie.

Friday After Next incorporates all the things that seem to lure a certain crowd of people out to the movies, but not much more than that. You’ve got our heroes, Ice Cube and Mike Epps, returning as the two weed-smoking cousins Craig and Day-Day, who appear to be anywhere from 18–30 years old. You’ve got their feuding fathers, John Witherspoon and DC Curry, who’ve opened up a rib shop together and are constantly ready to kill each other. You’ve got a few pimped-out hustlers working the Jherri-curls and the crazy suits. You’ve got an ugly landlady with a moustache who wants her rent money, her hulking muscle-bound ex-con son who’s ready to spring his newfound manhood on the first guy that comes along, and of course, Santa Claus.

That’s right—Friday After Next is indeed a “holiday” movie, complete with a South Central Santa stealing every one of our heroes’ gifts. I’ll admit that this movie isn’t completely devoid of laughs, thanks to the utter foolishness that Witherspoon brings to the screen, but I will say that this is a horrible attempt to squeeze a little bit more out of a franchise that should have been a sitcom on UPN by now. There seems to be way too much violent slapstick that isn’t even funny, paired up with all kinds of ad-libbing that just does not cut it.

Why Chris Tucker never signed on to do another movie with Ice Cube will always be the point at which this herbal equation starts to lose its buzz. I guess it’s not so hard to make a movie you have to be stoned to enjoy. :

Friday After Next opens Friday, Nov. 22

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