The movie is a little windy and over-the-top, and the gossipy references to J-Lo and Anna Nicole Smith are woefully outdated.
The Salon (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:32
Fresh:4
Rotten:28
Average Rating:3.5/10
Consensus: Having been delayed several years, The Salon's pop culture references are stale and its story and characters were better done in the Barbershop series.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: At the epicenter of the neighborhood is Jenny's beauty salon, where women flock to get made over and to feel at home. For owner Jenny (Vivica A. Fox) and her loyal patrons, it's more than just a... At the epicenter of the neighborhood is Jenny's beauty salon, where women flock to get made over and to feel at home. For owner Jenny (Vivica A. Fox) and her loyal patrons, it's more than just a business; it's a community fixture. But all this quickly comes under threat when a good-looking businessman arrives at the salon to warn Jenny of corporate sharks driving out local shops. While deeply protective of her salon, Jenny faces a predicament when she finds herself attracted to the man relaying the message. [More]
Starring: Vivica A. Fox, Darrin Dewitt Henson, Kym Whitley, Terrence Howard
Starring: Vivica A. Fox, Darrin Dewitt Henson, Kym Whitley, Terrence Howard, Monica Calhoun
Director: Mark Brown
Director: Mark Brown
Screenwriter: Mark Brown
Producer: Mark Brown, Vivica A. Fox, Carl Craig
Reviews for The Salon
Not funny enough, romantic enough, or serious enough to succeed as a comedy, romance or urban issues drama.
Talks its way to a tedious, predictable conclusion that offers more yawns than laughs.
Like a perm that won't grow away, it's stuck in the race-comedy mold of Barbershop, Barbershop 2 and Beauty Shop. Been there, done that hair.
The unremitting jokes and insults between blacks and whites, gays and straights, might make the hair on your head (and arms) press and curl from all of the crass and overdone sass.
The movie includes a few good one-liners, but that's really all it is -- a forum for putdowns and sassy dialogues.
The comic equivalent of microwaved leftover food -- and pretty stale at that.
I've seen porn with better dialogue and SNL sketches with less amateur production values.
Given that Brown wrote the significantly superior Barbershop, he should know that when you make a socially conscious comedy, you've got to weave in plenty of wit alongside the wisdom.
Like a rerun of a television show you didn't much care for in the first place.
Good-natured but curiously flat, a bottle of root beer that's lost its fizz.
The movie was shot more than three years before its release, and it shows, as when the salon's resident golddigger says: "Anna Nicole Smith -- I aspire to be just like her."
What felt like joyful camaraderie in Barbershop comes across here as nasty bickering.
Writer-director Mark Brown, he of the Barbershop franchise, has an inexplicable fondness for close-ups that cut off the tops of the actors’ heads -- unfortunate in a movie about hair.
Bottoms-out with this bit of dialogue: 'If you're going to be a ho, be an ambitious ho. Work uptown.' What unfortunate timing, given the whole Don Imus controversy. Life's simply too short for slur-ploitation with such lamentably low standards.
A feeble dramedy about a Baltimore beauty shop where someone should come in to sweep up the clichés.
The best scenes in Barbershop featured incisive discussions of current events. Here, the closest brush with topicality is a reference to Eddie Griffin.
Vivica A. Fox proves to be a warm and appealing anchor for sometimes sitcom-level silliness.
This movie abruptly becomes a too-convenient black history lesson, complete with a truly egregious deus ex machina. The Salon is a cut below.
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