To illustrate how short on material "friday after next" is, the animated opening credits sequence takes up nearly five of the film's scant 85 minutes.

That's not because the bit is all that amusing (it's a recurring motif in the "friday" movies that sort of pays tribute to the infinitely better series of "Pink Panther" movies). Rather, it suggests that the filmmakers had run out of ideas for gags and decided to pad out the movie with an extended animation sequence.

Perhaps we should thank them for that, since the live-action film — surely the worst of the series — contains more painfully unfunny, misogynistic and sometimes racist shtick than the first two films combined.

This time around, Craig Jones (executive producer/screenwriter Ice Cube) and his mouthy pal Day-Day (Mike Epps) have finally moved away from home and are sharing an apartment. But they're barely squeaking by, and getting robbed of all their Christmas presents by a thief dressed as Santa surely doesn't help. Worse, their landlady (Bebe Drake) is threatening bodily harm — in the form of her recently imprisoned son (Terry Crews) — if they don't pay their rent.

So Craig and Day-Day are forced to take jobs as security guards in a low-rent strip mall, where they immediately run afoul of Christmas carolers, the greedy mall manager and others.

Frankly, it's probably not worth going any deeper into this plot; suffice it to say that the plot exists only to provide opportunities for awful slapstick, as well as Epps' annoying patter. (Who'd have thought anyone could make us miss Chris Tucker?)

To his credit, Cube is starting to relax more as an actor; he's by far the more charismatic, and funnier, performer here, despite his allowing Epps to dominate scenes.

"Friday after next" is rated R for frequent use of strong sex-related profanity, crude sexual slang terms and racial epithets, vulgar gags relating to sexual and other bodily functions, simulated drug use (marijuana), violence (beatings, vehicular and sexual violence — all supposedly done for laughs), brief sexual contact and brief partial male nudity. Running time: 85 minutes.

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