The first Shaft (1971) had a lot of style and was a class movie, the 2nd Shaft (2000 with Samuel L. Jackson) was ok and was still stylish, but this 3rd edition has a lot to be desired.

The new character of Shaft played by Jessie T. Usher was breath of fresh air, still cool and brought the series up to date in the modern era, however the old Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson reprising his role) turned out to be an uncool dirty old man.

I think the makers were trying to show the difference between the new and the old shaft, but it only worked to an extent, it made out the old Shaft to be a misogynistic, ignorant, boorish, dodgy (no driving licence), dirty old man, and certainly un-cool. The new shaft is a data analyst, did not wear a gun, but could shoot well (trained in the FBI), unfortunately the old shaft tried to turn him into something like himself, this was supposed to be a major point in the film, but for me was a huge mistake, and turning him from nerdy/cool to un-cool I think. Cool being the point of Shaft movies, that's why it did not work for me.

Mr Jackson played his boorish part well and full marks for Jessie Usher for his acting, a promising future, direction was ok but the idea of the characters was a bit of a turn off, and also there is a major flaw in the continuation from the first 2, in the last one (2000) the new Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) played the nephew of the old Shaft (Richard Rowntree), but in this he had changed to his son !!!

The supporting actors were ok to an extent, some were a bit wooden, but Jessie T. Usher saved it to an extent with his character and acting.

Rule 1 - If you do a sequel try to keep the same style of characters and :-

Rule 2 - Continuity, get it right !

I only gave it a 3 for Mr Usher.