This movie is a great one! Queen Latifah, as always, is amazing. In this one she shines as an example to women everywhere to pursue their dreams and not let anything stand in their way. Tired of dealing with an annoying boss, she decides to open her own Beauty Salon, and deals with all the hassles of running a new business - plus being a mother to a daughter with a recently deceased father. But she takes it all in stride, and hands out plenty of laughs for the audience as they enjoy the ride with her.Beauty Shop not just entertains, it has good lessons in it too - I recommend this movie to all the women out there (and the men who enjoy a movie that empowers women too!)

Being an admirer of Queen Latifah, who I believe as a great talent, I really to like this film. But I'm afraid I can't recommend it.First, it is clear the cast and crew think the script funnier than it is; that's important, because it means there are going to be editing mistakes - not glaring ones like mismatched shots in inter-cut, but mistakes in timing, when the editor thinks there's a audience laugh to be allowed for with the brief "take" of an actor's response to a line or slow-burn; but the laugh doesn't arrive, so the takes are just dead time, dragging the film down.Which of course leads to the second problem , the film's pacing. It is very erratic. Some scenes have no build-up, some have too much and end up over-extended which all amounts to "slow"; there are actually 'slow comedy' techniques (Jack Benny was a master). But this is basically a sit-com without a laugh track, so it needs to move at a real clip; but it doesn't.Finally there's manner in which Latifah is presented. The director clearly admires her acting as much as I do, but he keeps trying to emphasize it. Latifah understands that an actor only needs small gestures and expressions on film, since the camera enlarges everything; but the director here really tries to bring our attention to her performance so that she appears to be over-acting sometimes when that is not the case - actually, the camera lingers too long, there are too many close-ups and they are too close for the naturalistic performance Latifah is trying to accomplish.That happens, to a lesser extent, with all the actors, all of whom are doing their best.But it's a weak script to start with, and the director hasn't yet found a focus that elevates it, so the acting gets pretty lost along the way.Watchable, but not much more.

What was I thinking when I agreed to watch this movie with my girlfriend? She had read about it in some women's magazine and from then on she was dying to see it. go figure....So here's this movie about (black) female empowerment, a perfect world where men are either complete insensitive jerks or just this big hunk of a guy who with all his gratuitously displayed muscle can't even walk straight. No wait, there's more, did I mention the sissified, braided-hair, pro-female-agenda metrosexual who drinks his coffee from a china cup with his pinky spread apart?To get one thing straight, I am neither misogynistic nor do I have issues with female empowerment, but this movie about a woman trying to get by in a supposedly still male-dominated world is almost insulting to any self-respecting man.That said, let's move on to the few upsides of this movie. Mena Suvari and Alicia Silverstone, two of the hottest babes under the sun, together in one movie, and Mena Suvari's character getting a boob job... now there's something to enjoy for a guy. It's a shame Alicia Silverstone never really became that big a name. She definitely still has potential and has come a long, long way since the days of being the "Aerosmith chick" or the "Clueless" valley girl. Please please, movie executives, find it in your heart to give her more challenging roles! Mena Suvari is stunning as ever. She, too, has evolved far beyond the goody-goody girl of "American Pie" and "Sugar and Spice" and just looks fabulous. I think we'll be seeing a lot of her in the future.Maybe it's because I'm a guy and "just don't get it" - but I can't see this movie rating anywhere above three points, despite very entertaining performances by Silverstone and Suvari. My apologies to the girl nation out there... or maybe not.P.S.: When we were done watching the movie and after my gf sat through the rant I was giving her about how this movie distorts the image of the modern male, she just quipped "...but that's how men really are!" -- You'd better hope the verdict is still out on that.

This movie is a spin-off sequel to Barberer Shop 2: Back in Business. Gina is a hairstylist who opens up a beauty shop full of employees and customers more interested in speaking their minds than getting a cut.Latifah does it again! Her charm lights up the screen. Gina's business starts off bad. Her own shop just looks bad. Luckily, her friends help her clean up the place and that's where she hires employees. She gets one of her white friends in the other shop to help her work there. Some of her black friends comes to help.This is one of those comedies that doesn't uses f-words. The acting from Latifah, Woodard, Silverstone, and Bacon are great. Actually, I've never seen Bacon act like that in his entire film career. It's funny to see that. Bacon's character then gets jealous because Gina is doing much better than he has expected. The jokes are funny in this film.If you just want to see a feel-good film, here it is!