Review of Next Friday

Introduction

Basically what we have here is a low brow comedy with lots of dope jokes, women called bitch and a bit of dog poo smeared on peoples behinds. And while not exactly breaking any new ground in comedy or plot, its still I must admit quite amusing in places. John Witherspoon (Craig’s Dad) puts in a great over the top performance as he frantically hams it up throughout the whole film and there are some genuine funny moments. Craig’s (Ice Cube`s) sidekicks Day Day (Mike Epps) and Roach (Justin Pierce) provide plenty of laughs as the film tries to resolve all the plot issues it really didn’t need in the first place. And that’s the main problem with this film. The plot.

Some of you may be saying “what plot?” and I would agree, but what little there is here is not really needed. The second half of the film tries to tie up all the weak plot lines, and just gets bogged down causing you to loose interest and wishing for more gags. Shame.

A good few laughs here but nothing particularly new.

Video

A good , solid anamorphic transfer which has plenty of detail, some nice deep blacks and good colour saturation. There are no real compression problems to talk of and so this picture looks just great.

Audio

A decent 5.1 soundtrack containing the A decent 5.1 soundtrack containing the likes of N.W.A, Wyclef Jean and Ice Cube among many others to keep the picture pumping along. A fairly spacious soundstage although rears are mainly used for ambient effects or music. The music has some nice low end as you might expect but the sub has little work to do which is a shame as the whole house could of shook with the music. Dialogue is clear and clean with no problems.

Features

Extras include an alternate ending, a couple of music videos featuring Ice Cube “Can you do it” and Lil’ Zane “Money stretch”. Trailer and cast and crew notes. The packaging also says theres a making of included but there isn’t one on the disk which is strange. To finish the disk of there are animated menus featuring plenty of smoke(if you now what I mean) and scenes from the film.

Conclusion

It never was going to stretch any part of your brain and theres nothing new here, but if you lay back and let it wash over you, you might just have a few laughs on the way. Definitely a disk to watch with your mates and a few tinnys/whatever’s your poison (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

If you liked the first film then your probably going to like this as the jokes remain virtually the same. You have a decent looking/sounding disk here so if you want a few chuckles on a Friday night and your into this kind of humor then you could do worse then pick up a copy of Next Friday.