First Sunday. Out now. Put it back in, it’s not done yet. (***3/10)
Ice Cube is actually a fairly good actor. In movies like Barbershop (which was very good), he has shown he has the capacity to move beyond the tough-guy Vin Diesel-in-XXX type characters he plays, and also past the tough-guy-falling-down, Vin Diesel-in-The Pacifier type characters he plays. And yet, outside Barbershop and the occasional scene in certain other movies, he has never even tried. Once again, in First Sunday, he returns to the familiar formulas that have made him reasonably successful over the past few years. The buddy that does dumb things and gets him into trouble, a la Friday. The girl who has an eye for him, and wants to love him underneath that tough-guy-idiot exterior, if only she can find the heart in the man, a la Next Friday. And so on and so forth.
Most irritating of all in First Sunday is the supporting cast. Every single character in this film is a cartoon. Ice Cube and his stupid friend (played in this particular film by Tracey Morgan) are desperate for money, so they decide to rob a church. A church populated by the hot chick, the crass granny, the evil deacon who’s embezzling the church’s funds, the kindly and understanding pastor, and the irritating, painfully flamboyant moron choir director. The resolution of the film is almost as idiotic as the set-up, and the underlying theme of Ice Cube wanting to keep his son around him in the city could be played for some decent dramatic effect, but this film treats it just as a means to an end.
There is nothing funny in First Sunday, and since it is ostensibly a “comedy”, that means there is no reason to rent it.