LOS ANGELES (AP) ? If ?Barbershop? was Ice Cube?s ?It?s a Wonderful Life,? the sequel is his ?Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.?

The 2002 original cast Ice Cube as a successor to James Stewart and Frank Capra?s George Bailey, a malcontent quietly seething over the confines of the family business until circumstance teaches him the richness of his life.

The equally warmhearted follow-up ?Barbershop 2: Back in Business? puts Ice Cube in the footsteps of Stewart and Capra?s Jefferson Smith, a naive idealist battling corrupt business and political forces in the name of communal decency.

The sequel arrives a scant 18 months after the first film, but it does not feel like a rush job knocked off to turn a quick buck. ?Barbershop 2,? though showing clear signs of the Hollywood-franchise commercialism, maintains the original?s mix of sweetness and urban attitude while incorporating dramatic undertones that nicely complement the broad comedy.

Now content with his role as a mid-sized fish on a small street on Chicago?s South Side, Ice Cube?s Calvin cheerily referees the spats and squabbles among his haircutting crew.

Irreverent elder barber Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer) continues to play the iconoclast, railing with unabashed political incorrectness and babbling about such nonsense as his ?lactose intoleration.?

Sean Patrick Thomas?s know-it-all Jimmy has graduated from cutting hair to working for a local alderman (Robert Wisdom) who is in collusion with a businessman (Harry Lennix) opening a ?Nappy Cutz? hairstyling franchise across the street from Calvin?s place.

Rounding out the gang are Eve as the brassy Terri, trying to control her anger through New Age self-defence lessons; Troy Garity as Isaac, the token-white barber who?s ripened into a showboat hair-clipper; Michael Ealy as ex-felon Ricky, now on the straight and narrow; and Leonard Earl Howze as jovial Nigerian immigrant Dinka.

Faced with competition that could put his shop out of business and corporate gentrification that threatens to obliterate his neighbourhood?s soul, Calvin must choose between championing the locals or cashing in on the boom times.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan and writer Don D. Scott maintain the rapid pace and snappy dialogue of ?Barbershop,? while thankfully jettisoning the slapstick excesses of Anthony Anderson, who did not return for the sequel.

The filmmakers weave in engaging flashbacks to the 1960s that allow Cedric to stretch into dramatic territory as Eddie ? on the run from the police ? finds haven with Calvin Sr. at the barbershop and takes a stand to save the business during 1968 riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

?I didn?t save the shop, Calvin. The shop saved me,? Eddie recalls. ?I didn?t have no life before.?

The affectionately quarrelsome camaraderie of Calvin?s barbershop denizens is undermined somewhat by the addition of Queen Latifah as Gina, the owner of a salon next door.

Latifah makes her forceful presence felt in one of the movie?s funniest sequences, Gina?s duel of ridicule against Eddie. But the movie?s cutaways to Gina?s gossipy salon disrupt the main action, serving only as a clumsy setup for Queen Latifah?s upcoming spinoff, ?Beauty Shop.?

This little side trip into coarse Hollywood economics will prove entirely forgivable, though, if ?Beauty Shop? musters anything close to the heart and humour of the ?Barbershop? flicks.

?Barbershop 2: Back in Business,? an MGM release, runs 98 minutes.

Three stars out of four.