Not funny enough, romantic enough, or serious enough to succeed as a comedy, romance or urban issues drama.
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
At least Norbit tried to come up with fresh new awfulness instead of idling in these familiar old ruts.
The movie includes a few good one-liners, but that's really all it is -- a forum for putdowns and sassy dialogues.
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.
The movie is a little windy and over-the-top, and the gossipy references to J-Lo and Anna Nicole Smith are woefully outdated.
Everything about it is whompingly (whoopingly?) obvious, from the hit-you-over-the-head narration to the tidy ending.
The main problem with the movie is the by now shopworn nature of its setting.
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."
The Salon had any genuine sass clipped out of it to fit a PG-13 rating.
This is one of those films where everything simply feels wrong, from the clunky dialogue to the obvious staging.
Talks its way to a tedious, predictable conclusion that offers more yawns than laughs.
Mark Brown is in real danger of running out of ideas. Fortunately for him, the comedy depths of setting a movie at the Pampered Poodle or Kuts 4 Kids have yet to be plumbed. I can hardly wait.
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.
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.
This movie abruptly becomes a too-convenient black history lesson, complete with a truly egregious deus ex machina. The Salon is a cut below.
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.
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.
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