HOUSE PARTY 3 (1994)

HOUSE PARTY 3 (New Line, R) The party's over. Those charismatic rap-lite jokesters Kid 'N Play seem less like stars than like impotent bystanders in this shambles of a sequel, which, even more than the middling House Party 2, turns the fizzy exuberance of the first film into a stale hangover. The static visuals and ''Lights! Camera! Do something funny!'' brand of farce are bad enough, but it's also depressing to see the producers' money-grubbing ambitions echoed so baldly in the ''plot,'' which casts the heroes as would-be hip-hop managers desperate to rook everyone in sight. Between the dead-end materialism and squalidly obvious sexual banter (the mere mention of the word booty is presented as a pinnacle of outrageousness), House Party 3 is like a training film for music-industry pimps. D- -OG

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