Susan Granger’s review of “Friday After Next” (New Line Cinema)
Screenwriter/producer/actor Ice Cube is back with the third installment in his popular havoc-in-the ‘hood comedy series which began with the video hit “Friday” (1995) and extended to its first sequel “Next Friday” (2000). It’s now Christmas-time in the old neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles, where deadbeats Craig (Ice Cube) and his cousin Day-Day (Mike Epps) dwell in a rundown Shady Palms apartment which they’ve decked out for the holidays. They’re definitely in a celebratory mood – until Craig wakes up in the middle of the night to discover a sleazy ghetto Santa stealing their presents along with everything else he can stuff in his sack, including the rent money jammed in their stereo speakers. And if they can’t pay their snoopy landlady, Miss Pearly (BeBe Drake), by midnight on Christmas Eve, she’ll send over her recently paroled, homosexual son (Terry Crews) who will certainly deck them, if not their halls. So they’ve got to score some quick cash working as unarmed security guards at the local strip mall where their fathers (John Witherspoon, Don “D.C.” Curry) operate Bros. Bar-B-Q rib eatery – at least when Craig’s not flirting with Donna (K.D. Aubert), who works at the “Pimps and Hos” clothing store run by flashy Money Mike (Katt Williams). After his memorable turn in “Barbershop,” affable Ice Cube seems subdued here and the trilogy is strictly ho-ho-hum. It’s R-rated and not intended for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the cheap laughs of crude bathroom humor, slapstick shtick, profanity, drug references, and male chauvinism – because all the women are either “bitches” or “ho’s.” Even Craig’s grandma gets walloped. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Friday After Next” is a frenetic, forgettable 3. Mercifully, it’s only 85 minutes long.
