John Singleton has been absent from the limelight for quite sometime. After an incredible breakthrough with Boyz N the Hood, he kept things light with the underrated Poetic Justice, the meandering Higher Learning, and the virtually unseen Rosewood. Now he's updated an iconic piece of pop culture.

In the 70's, Shaft was quite a controversial film. It featured a tough as nails African American cop as it's central hero, and this was virtually unheard of a the time.

In the original, Richard Roundtree portrayed the title character, and he actually plays a supporting role in this film that's really more of an updated continuation than a remake.

Samuel L. Jackson is the bad ass this time out, and makes the most of his role, snarling and taking down the bad guys. Unfortunately, this Shaft is more often than not an underwritten fiasco.

Part of the fun in the original, was its obvious amateurish style of film-making. Singleton tries to infuse the same sort of spirit and rhythm, but in a typical slick, Hollywood style that sort of destroys the fun.

The screenplay is also full of one dimensional characters and doesn't make use of the considerable talents of Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense) and bad guy Christian Bale (American Psycho). Aside from Jackson, the only one that really goes for the gusto is nasty Jeffrey Wright (Basquiat) who plays a druglord along the lines of Al Pacino in Scarface. He seems to take devilish delight in his performance, and this is certainly one of the most memorable bad guys in recent memory. Unfortunately, it never really adds up to anything.

Shaft is a surprisingly dull movie experience even though it seems to have all the right elements. Jackson's Shaft is certainly cool but not nearly as cool as Jules in Pulp Fiction.

Singleton has failed in breathing new life into this great character. I would have much rather someone digitally remastered the original and re-released it. This Shaft gets the shaft. CAN YOU DIG IT?