 Beauty Shop, starring Queen Latifah, appears virtually certain to become the latest comedy with African-American stars to rise to the top of the box office. It follows this year's Are We There Yet?, Hitch, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and Guess Who. The film, which opens wide today (Wednesday) is attracting mostly positive reviews. On the positive side, many reviewers indicate that the force of Queen Latifah's charisma and the accomplished performers of her costars, may well offset a relatively weak script, loose editing, and even looser direction. As Chris Kaltenbach puts it in the Baltimore Sun: "Just like in the Barbershop films, the main attraction is watching and listening as those who work in the shop interact, playing off one another, dissing one another, working out that fragile (but one hopes appealing) chemistry that can make a workplace seem more like a home than a place to collect a paycheck." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe observes that there are so many talented performers in the cast that the film resembles "a crowded backyard picnic, and I mean that as a compliment. ... What there isn't much of is a plot. You may not miss it." Similarly, Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News comments, "The cast is ready, willing and able, but the material's not there." But Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune figures it doesn't really matter. He writes: "There are times when you can enjoy a picture that's packed full of cliches, formula plot lines, recycled jokes, and populated with big, brassy, in-your-face characters and a few caricatures. For me, that was the case with Beauty Shop." The film does receive a handful of out-and-out negative reviews, like Bruce Kirland's in the San Francisco Chronicle, who describes it as "an ugly little movie that is an insult to its origins and a waste of the Queen's considerable talents." |
