Justin Pierce, John Witherspoon, Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr.,
Don "D.C." Curry, Jacob Vargas, Lobo Sebastian, Rolando Molina
Director: Steve Carr
Running Time: 93 Minutes
This is the sequel to the 1995 sleeper hit "Friday." This movie starts where the last movie ended, which makes sense. Debo (Tiny Lister) is in jail for all the havoc he created in the first movie, but not for long. Debo busted out of jail to pay a visit to his old friend Craig (Ice Cube) who was responsible for kicking his butt and getting him put in jail. When the news of Debo escape is made public Craig's Father (John Witherspoon) send Craig to his brother's house out in the suburbs to hide until they put Debo back behind bars. Once Craig makes it out of South Central and into the burbs all of the madness starts quite quickly. Craig and his cousin Day-Day (Mike Epps) get into all kinds of trouble. Epps takes the place of the missing Chris Tucker and does a great job as the comic relief guy. Tucker character (Smokey) is supposedly in drug rehab. While living large at his lotto winning Uncle's house Craig discovers that his Uncle has blown all of his money and doesn't have enough money to pay his property taxes, so it's up to Craig and Day-Day to figure out a way to come up with the money and save the day. If you liked the first movie, you're going to love this one. If you haven't seen either go rent "Friday" and then go see "Next Friday."
A scientist (David Paymer) developed a chemical bomb that is capable of killing millions of people if it got into the wrong hands. While testing the bomb an accident happened and 19 soldiers died. So someone had to be held responsible for the accident so they made the Captain (Peter Firth) in charge of the soldiers the fall guy, but it wasn't his fault. Captain Brynmer was sentence to 10 years in prison for the mishap. After 10 years in prison Captain Brynmer was a little bitter so he decided to steal the chemical bomb so he can sell it to the highest bidder. The Captain's gang broke into the military base and shot the scientist that created the bomb but the scientist was able to escape with the bomb and gave it to Skeet Ulrich. Now this bring us to Cuba Gooding Jr. which is playing an ice cream delivery truck driver. Ulrich makes Gooding drive him to Fort Magruder so they can turn over the bomb to the military. Oh, did I mention that they have to keep the bomb under 50 degrees or it will blowup. This movie was alright but nothing to write home about. This is the 3rd so-so movie Cuba Gooding Jr. have starred in. If he doesn't pick his movie roles more carefully his career might go up in a puff of smoke! Wait until this one comes out on cable.
DOUBLE JEOPARDY
Paramount Pictures
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, Annabeth Gish,
Bruce Greenwood, Roma Maffia
Director: Bruce Beresford
Running Time: 106 Minutes
Tommy Lee Jones once again playing an law enforcement type-guy. Can anyone say type-cast. I know Jones won an Academy Award for his role in 'The Fugitive' but come on give me a break! I would like to see Jones do something else besides chasing down criminals. Well I guess I should stop complaining and tell you a little about the movie. Ashley Judd plays an happily married mother and life is good until her husband gets into finically difficulties and decide the only way out is to fake his death and frame his wife for the murder. Judd is found guilty and is sent to prison. While in prison one of the inmates tell Judd that when she gets out of prison she can kill her husband and the police couldn't do anything about it because she has already been convicted of that crime. So after six years Judd is released from prison and placed in a halfway house. Now this is where Judd and Jones first meet. Jones plays an probation officer and he is in charge of the halfway house. Of course Judd escape from the halfway house in order to find and kill her husband. So Judd is after her husband and Jones is after Judd. How quaint, NOT!! Judd finally catches up to her husband, but she decides not to kill him. She just wanted her son back, but her husband had other ideals about that little proposal. This movie was badly written and predictable, but it was still fun to watch it all unfold. Only go see this movie if you haven't seen 'The Fugitive' or 'U.S. Marshall'. For everybody else wait for the video release.
U-571
Universal Pictures
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel,
Jon Bon Jovi, Jake Weber
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Running Time: 110 Minutes
This is a World War II action-thriller about a spec-op mission to capture a decoder on a crippled Nazi U-boat. The United States intercepted a distress signal from the damaged Nazi U-boat and they redesigns one of their subs to look like a Nazi U-boat in order to trick the Germans into thinking it was a Nazi rescue mission there to help them. The plan was working perfectly until another U-boat shows up and throws a monkey wrench into the works. I thought the movie was great and the explosions were loud, very loud. Explosions are cool, huh-huh! I was quite impressed with the chemistry between McConaughey and Keitel. I highly recommend this flick unless you're claustrophobic. This movie will blow you out of the water!
