Friday After Next

Like most people, I had regarded "Friday After Next" as a wildly anticipated follow-up of "Next Friday" and of course, "Friday", after viewing its preview some seven months back. Well, it's been four days since I have seen the newest Ice Cube/Mike Epps release and frankly, it hit me like a ton of bricks of it being a real letdown.
Craig Jones and his motormouth cousin, Day-Day, discover that a human Grinch has the gall to rob them of their valuable possessions, an inventory which includes their
Christmas presents and(gasp!)rent money for their sniveling landlady, Miss Pearly, who wastes no time in demanding the boys to cough up the cash by(guess when?)or her loving and newly paroled behemoth of her son(who has developed a deep passion for the opposite sex, hint hint), Damon, will waste no them to answer to them.
With that in mind and starting their first day on the beat as security guards to a sleazy strip mall, Craig and Day-Day are faced with some trials and tribulations involving(not necessarily in that order)some Jehovah's witnesses, doped-up shoplifters, a juvenile "shakedown" gang, a hyper Middle Eastern doughnut store owner who happens to be their boss as well as Craig and Day-Day's fathers who(surprise, surprise)happen to operate a local rib joint in the very mall where the guys are assigned to look after, before concocting an idea by the time they are(oh no!)canned by their no-account employer(who quickly gets his comeuppance by Craig's dad and Uncle Elroy)to host a house party to raise their much needed rent money. In the midst of all this, before the 90 minutes are up, Craig and Day-Day capture the hot-foot Santa Claus bandit and retrieve their worldly belongings, including their bucks for their "crib".
What did I get from all of this? Well, it surely made me longing to watch the original of this series all over again because simply put,this installment was made up of rehashed characters(Damon and the elderly female parishoners, for instance)and scenes(Craig's dad and the bathroom, if you know what I mean)from the past just to make this picture a worthy "cash cow". Even pining for the first sequel didn't seem like a bad idea because what "Friday" and "Next Friday" had that certainly, in my humble opinion, "Friday After Next" didn't, was SUBSTANCE. At least, Mike Epp's nutty antics made up for its shortcoming or else, I'd request the presence of Chris Tucker as the looney Smokey to come re-claim his spot as Craig's erratic sidekick.