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’s a not-too-great continuation of the iconic Barbershop movie from 2002. The movie picks up where the first one left off, but the comedic punch and unbelievable surprises that made the first Barbershop so memorable are lacking in this sequel, which is very sad.
The characters are back, along with some new additions. This movie introduces the beauty shop next door, which Calvin (Ice Cube) owns and is run by Gina (Queen Latifah). The beauty shop even got its own feature film later on.
The writers decided to split the comedy between the barbershop and the beauty shop. The sad part is, all the humor felt more gentle, as if they wanted the movie to be more family-friendly. But in the end, the movie just fell flat.

The movie’s plot shows Calvin settling into his role as the owner of the barbershop. Even though he’s busy dealing with his staff’s issues and running the shop, its relevance to the community is being threatened.
Next door is Gina, Calvin’s ex, who runs a beauty shop for the women in the neighborhood.

The threat to Calvin’s barbershop comes from a developer named Quentin. Quentin is determined to transform the neighborhood into a Vegas-like area.
His plan is to open a new barbershop called Nappy Cutz right across the street from Calvin’s shop.
Quentin wants to attract wealthy people to the neighborhood, modernizing it and making it more appealing to the rich. Why he decided to do this by opening a barbershop is beyond me, as the scriptwriters seem to have overemphasized the importance of a local barbershop.
The battle for relevance is on between the two shops.

The movie has many subplots, some of which are either too irrelevant to lift the mood or too insignificant to matter.

After this movie, there was Barbershop 3: The Next Cut (2016), which was much better than this sequel but still not as good as the first movie. I think they should not have made sequels to the first movie.

The decision to take a different path with the movie’s comedic tone and delivery hurt its critical reception. The first movie made more than six times its production cost, while this one only made twice its production cost.
Following this was the spin-off, Beauty Shop. While Beauty Shop was structured similarly to the first Barbershop, its comedy felt more like this Barbershop sequel. The spin-off didn’t have much success at the box office either.