"Sunday" sermon lacks any kind of inspiration

It's a weekday no longer, which may disappoint fans of the zany urban slapstick presided over by Ice Cube in the carefree trilogy "Friday," "Next Friday" and "Friday After Next." There's a similar backbone of bumbling comedy in "First Sunday," and as an actor he's got some chops. But it feels like Ice Cube the producer is taking a day of rest from orchestrating the madcap farce that made those earlier movies so much fun. This "Sunday" is way too preachy.

Ice Cube plays Durell, a streetwise smart guy who's had some tough breaks and is trying to be a devoted dad to the son who lives with his ex-wife (Regina Hall). When she threatens to move from Baltimore to Atlanta and take the kid out of his life, Durell is faced with coughing up serious scratch so she can pay off the lease on her beauty parlor. Meanwhile, his dimwitted best friend, LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), is also in desperate need of cash after running afoul of some hip-hop Rasta gangstas when he loses a valuable load of their ridiculously pimped-out wheelchairs.

Morgan's grinning, mush-mouthed patter is sometimes cause for amusement. But it's unlikely Durell would fall for LeeJohn's harebrained scheme to rob a neighborhood church of the charity fund that's stashed in the pastor's office. It's even more unlikely when the two break into the church and find that a cross-section of the congregation is there, too; the board is having a meeting and the choir is having an impromptu practice.

They take everybody hostage and what could have continued as a lively charade bogs down into a squabbling mess of individual character development, unaffecting moralizing and shabby wisecracks. Most of the jokes revolve around comic Katt Williams as the campy chorus master. A few of his one-liners raise a smile, even though there's no unity, purpose or hint of authenticity to the silly tangents the story tries to connect. What's worse, Ice Cube's serious dose of tough and scary just doesn't jibe with what we learned about Durell at the outset. Who wants reality and a hollow inspirational message after a setup promising madcap laughs?

Both plot and comedy devolve into complete idiocy during a final courtroom scene that tidies things up with stunning foolishness. Keith David as the exasperated judge can't believe what he's seeing, and neither can we. Thank God it's Monday.

Ted Fry: tedfry@hotmail.com