 Although movie industry analysts are predicting that Barbershop 2: Back in Business will be a big winner at the box office this weekend, many film critics have found it to be somewhat less than winning. Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times says that it "should produce a lot more laughs," but concedes that it's "intermittently amusing." Several critics (Mitchell included) suggest that the filmmakers have emphasized the second part of the title. Lou Lumenick in the New York Post calls it "a calculating crowd-pleaser that sometimes feels like a movie equivalent of the corporate chains it's decrying." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times finds it second-rate, compared with the original. "The first film arrived with freshness and an unexpected zing, but this one seems too content to follow in its footsteps," he writes. Most critics, however, suggest that seeing the film may be a pleasant way of spending an hour and 38 minutes. Desson Thomson in the Washington Post remarks that "it's a warm, often funny reunion of the sassiest, chattiest characters ever to buzz a brother's head. You'll like this one more than you'd expect." And Claudia Puig in USA Today writes that the sequel "is not a hair short of the original." |
