What did you think of "Next Friday"?   Good 74% 794   Bad 14% 150   Somewhere in between 3% 33   Haven't seen it 9% 95 Total Votes   1072

Verdict: It's back to business-as-usual at the movies, with the return of this typical dumb comedy.

Details: Starring Ice Cube and Mike Epps. Directed by Steve Carr. Rated R for strong language, drug use and sexual content. 1 hour, 33 minutes.

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Review: Sorry, folks, but it looks like the end-of-the-year season of prestige films has officially come to a close. Now, it's back to the usual garbage. Example A: "Next Friday," from producer, co-scripter and star Ice Cube.

The best that can be said for this sequel to the '95 comedy Friday is that, unlike the first flick, the characters don't spend most of the movie sitting on the front steps and yacking while they get stoned. No, they go to other interesting locations to get stoned. Like a record shop. And a suburban house. That's where Craig (Cube) goes to stay with his lottery-winning uncle when the thug he trashed in the first movie, Debo (Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr.) breaks out of jail and comes looking for him.

This change of scenery doesn't do much to alter the movie's tired vision of all its women characters as psychopaths or sluts. Craig's uncle's wife (Kym E. Whitley) is always trying to stick her tongue in his ear, while his cousin Day-Day (Mike Epps) is on the run from two ex-girlfriends who stalk him with pepper spray and vandalize his car.

The one exception to cartoonish portrayal is Karla (Lisa Rodriguez), but she fits another movie stereotype. She's the standard-issue good girl with voluptuous curves who inexplicably falls hard when she gets an eyeful of the single, sullen facial expression Cube uses from first frame to last. In a fantasy scene, Karla writhes seductively for him, standing on a coffee table. One assumes this is an auteuristic reference to the star's directorial work on the gritty and powerful expos of the world of exotic dancers, The Players Club. Yeah, whatever.

Karla lives next door to Craig's uncle with her three drug-dealing brothers, led by the tough little tattooed one-named Joker (Jacob Vargas). The guys give the movie an excuse to revel in clichéd jokes about Latino machismo. They also raise the T&A quotient by holding a party and inviting three beauties, who each wears about three square inches of clothing. Oh, the Joker Bros. also have some high-powered firearms, so a lot of things get shot up for fun at the film's climax. Did I mention their fierce, little pit bull, who turns out to enjoy getting stoned, too.

Too lamely written to ever be really offensive, "Next Friday" is a reminder that, while more complex, mature but still funny African-American comedies are getting made ("The Wood," say, and "The Best Man"), there's always a market for flatulence and dog poop jokes. Hey, nothing wrong with that. But the flick could use Chris Tucker, co-star of the first "Friday," AWOL in the sequel. He probably took a look at the script and realized this sequel was no reason to shout, "T.G.I.F."

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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