Critics are expending as much verbiage on the place of Brown Sugar in the annals of African-American movies as they are on the qualities of the movie itself, the first to be produced by former basketball star Magic Johnson, who has built a chain of comfortable theaters in the heart of urban areas across the country. Gene Seymour in Newsday comments "The movie plays cute more than smart, but it's far from dumb -- and marks yet another baby step forward in the growing sophistication of African-American film. There are no breakthroughs in form, no jolts to the system." But Jonathan Foreman in the New York Post wonders about the kind of "progress" the film represents: "Where once only a few ultra-talented, lucky black filmmakers got to make big studio movies, now we have standard-issue Hollywood schlock that happens to be made by, about and for African-Americans." However, most of the reviews are positive. David Germain of the Associated Press writes: "Brown Sugar follows the romantic comedy formula to the letter, but does it so warmly and intelligently that it's easy to forgive the predictability of the movie, which could follow Barbershop as another crowd-pleaser that entices viewers beyond its core audience of urban blacks." And Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times concludes: "Brown Sugar proves as appealing as its title."