Starring Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer. Rated PG.

The first Barbershop, released just two years ago, was such a genial shambles of a movie that its lack of dramatic drive somehow added to the authenticity of the tale as a slice of unfabulous ghetto life. It was too much to expect that a sequel would add more substance to the mix, and this one doesn't, but as a string of lively vignettes--many of which resonate beyond their somewhat clumsy settings--Barbershop 2: Back in Business justifies most of the time spent in the theatre.

When we last saw Calvin Palmer (Ice Cube, who grows more quietly charismatic with every screen appearance), he had just narrowly saved his shop from the clutches of a local gangster. This time around, the adversary is the entire capitalist system, with corporate forces threatening Calvin's South Side Chicago neighbourhood in the form of strategic gentrification.

The rest of the gang is here, with the tough-talking Terri (rapper Eve) and former hood-rat Ricky (soulful Michael Ealy) making nice, especially with each other--that latter part to the dismay of the shop's gentle African transplant, Dinka (Leonard Earl Howze). Isaac (Troy Garity), "the Eminem of haircuttin' ", actually has customers now.

Much of the comedy falls to Cedric the Entertainer's salt-and-pepper-'froed Eddie, who is still a font of caustic comments, even if he struggles to say anything as contentious as his Rosa Parks shtick from before. (Many of the new film's references feel curiously dated, what with its Bill Clinton and R. Kelly jokes. The opening montage, though--an elegant one, depicting the evolution of black popular culture--delivers the ultimate word on Michael Jackson's ceaseless bleaching.)

The arrogant Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas) has finished with college and is now working for an alderman (Robert Wisdom) who pretends to be down with his peeps while simply being high on development money, thanks to the cigar-chomping brain (Harry Lennix) behind Nappy Kutz, a mass-market chain outlet being built across the street from Calvin's shop.

Unfortunately, despite its real-life evils, creeping Wal-Martism doesn't prove as compelling an enemy as did the first movie's old-school loan shark--a man so bad, he wore matching purple hats and shoes. And although the face-off gives Cube a chance to deliver a Frank Capraí‚ ­style speech to the Chicago city council, this whole cutting competition is fuzzy stuff, until it is resolved with all-too-casual ease.

Much more clearly delineated is the presence of Queen Latifah, with just a few scenes as Calvin's former love interest and the proprietor of the pink-painted beauty salon next door--an operation that just happens to be getting its own movie spinoff later this year. Next!