Ice Cube stars, once again, in the third film to appear in the “Friday” series. In “Friday After Next,” Christmas is coming to South Central Los Angeles where Craig (Ice Cube) and his cousin Day-Day (Mike Epps) have finally moved away from home and into an apartment together.
All is well until their place is broken into by a thieving Santa Claus (Rickey Smiley) who steals their stereo, Christmas presents and – most importantly – rent money.
Finding themselves faced with eviction and no money for new Christmas presents or their Christmas party, Craig and Day-Day get jobs working as security guards at a strip mall, where their fathers (John Witherspoon and Don “D.C.” Curry) have opened a rib restaurant.
Day-Day takes the job a little too seriously and inevitably lands the duo in trouble. Between running from neighborhood thugs and becoming the victims of the Grinch-like Santa again, Craig finds himself falling for a mistreated saleswoman at the Pimp N’ Ho’s boutique, Donna (K.D. Aubert).
“Friday After Next” tries to bring a fresh story line to the urban comedy trilogy, but like “Next Friday” it relies too heavily on slapstick humor.
In addition to a few new slapstick situations, one involving a pair of vice-grips and a man’s most sensitive body part, all of the old gags resurface, including Mr. Jones’ famous bowel movements.
The film is missing the dialogue humor that was so prevalent in the original “Friday.”
The success of the original “Friday” was due largely to Chris Tucker’s character, Smokey.
This role launched Tucker’s career and made the “Friday” movie a hit with mainstream audiences. Ice Cube’s brooding character was so well-balanced by Tucker’s antics.
In an attempt to replace Smokey in both “Next Friday” and this film, Day-Day’s character was built up, but his humorless observations and ill-timed intrusions pale in comparison to Tucker’s popular humor.
“Friday After Next” director Marcus Raboy does fairly well with his transition from music video director, but he makes a few small mistakes.
For starters, the overhead microphone can be seen dipping in and out of at least five scenes. This is the kind of mistake that is rarely seen, even in student films.
Nothing hurls a viewer out of movieland as quickly or effectively as seeing a mic bobbing in and out of a scene.
Despite personal objections to the film, it seemed to sit well overall with the audience.
Though the slapstick humor was redundant, the film was not without humor. To the credit of the cast and crew involved with “Friday After Next,” it had the rest of the nearly 2,500 person preview audience in hysterics.
