Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004)

Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004)

5/10

Starring

Ice Cube

Cedric the Entertainer

Sean Patrick Thomas

Eve

Directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan

Here is a not too great continuation of the iconic Barbershop movie from 2002. The movie continues from the first, but the comedic punch and unbelievable surprises that the first Barbershop movie carried, is lacking in this sequel.

The characters are back and some new additions too. This movie introduced the Beauty shop next door to which Calvin (Ice Cube) owns and the shop is run by Gina (Queen Latifah), the Beauty Shop too had its feature film.

The writers decided to split the way the comedy is delivered. We get some from the Barbershop and others from the beauty shop. The sad part is, all the comedy was more gentile like they wanted the movie to be more family friendly, but in the end the movie was just lacking.

The movie’s plot shows us how Calvin has settled into the role of owner of the Barbershop. Even though Calvin has settled into his role as owner busy attending to the issues of his staff and other things in the shop, his shop relevance to the people was being threatened.

Next door was Gina, Calvin’s ex who runs a Beauty Shop for the ladies of the neighborhood.

The threat to Calvin's Barbershop came from a developer called Quentin. Quentin is very interested in taking the neighborhood and turning it into a kind of Vegas feel.

His plan was to open right across the street from Calvin's shop, a new Barbershop called Nappy Cutz.

Quentin wanted to bring into the neighborhood people with money. He wanted to modernize the neighborhood and make it more appealing to the rich. Why he decided to this by opening a Barbershop is beyond me, as the script writers seem to have over emphasized the importance of a local barbershop.

The battle for relevance was on between the two barbershops.

The movie had many other subplots going on in the movie, some of which were just too relevant to lift the mood of the movie or were too insignificant to matter.

After this movie there was a Barbershop 3, Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016) which was much better than this movie, but not as good as the first movie.

The decision to take a different path in the movie’s comedic tone and delivery told on the movie’s negative critical reception. The first movie made more than six times its production cost, while this movie made twice its production cost.

After this was the spinoff, Beauty Shop. Beauty Shop was carved in the same way as the first Barbershop, but the comedy was more this Barbershop sequel. The spinoff didn’t have much success in the box office either.