Sequels are usually not as good as the original. This isn’t engraved in stone but just a guideline. Don’t expect too much is basically it. “Be Cool” is the sequel to 1995’s “Get Shorty,” where Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a movie loving shylock becomes a movie producer. Now, in “Be Cool,” Palmer is upset with the movie industry and turns to the music industry. But not expecting much isn’t the same as a movie built on other movies. “Be Cool” has one obvious reference to other movies after another. It was as if the writer, Peter Steinfeld, made a list of references to other movies and then built the plot around it. Are the references really more important than the plot? Here’s an example: we all remember the dance contest sequence with Travolta and Thurman in “Pulp Fiction,” where Travolta danced for his job and Thurman danced simply to win. So it’s logical to incorporate a dance sequence in “Be Cool” and they do. But after that, the sequence goes nowhere and does nothing.

On with the plot: Tommy Athens (James Woods), a friend of Chili’s, gets murdered by the Russian mob. Chili finishes his Athens’ job of producing a young and innocent singer named Linda Moon (Christina Milian). But Moon already has a manager Raji (Vince Vaughn) with his bodyguard Elliot Wilhelm (The Rock), who works for Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel), owner of a record label. Turns out Athens has a debt with another music label owner, Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer). With Athens’ wife Edie (Uma Thurman), Chili has to promote and produce Moon’s debut album while watching his back. There are numerous cameos by Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Seth Green, etc.

The Rock has the only performance worth the screen time. We’re used to seeing him as a tough guy onscreen and as a wrestler. But here, he’s a tough guy trying to be tough but in the end, he’s sensitive and doesn’t realize he’s gay. I was disenchanted with yet another reference not to another movie but to his character in the wrestling world. The reference was “The People’s Eyebrow” where he lifts up his eyebrow into an arch. 

Sadly, “Be Cool” isn’t a film. It’s more of a parody, an illusion, a commercial. Everyone involved should take their gold chains, their black suits, their hummers, their guns, their one liners and reflect the movie they made. It might have seemed funny and poetic on paper but onscreen it’s totally different.