Movie Review: Joyful Noise

As if 2012 wasn’t off to a bad enough start, with theatergoers enduring early January's The Devil Inside. If you thought things couldn’t get any worse than that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you another piece of evidence as to the term “dump month” with Joyful Noise. As it turns out, Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah are not a match made in heaven when it comes to dueling choir members in this film set in the backwoods of Georgia. But if you think they are, this film is for you. I seriously fear any film this year that winds up being worse than this. I'll admit that I actually like both Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah. Unfortunately, this is far from the days of 9 to 5 and nowhere near Chicago.

To make a very long “story” short, in Pacashau, Georgia, G.G. Sparrow (Parton) has just buried her husband, Bernard (Kris Kristofferson). He was the show runner of their town’s beloved Divinity Church Choir. The members of the choir have aspirations to make it big and win the “Joyful Noise” competition. Now the church, lead by Pastor Dale (Courtney B. Vance) has decided to hand over the reigns to Vi Rose Hill (Queen Latifah) against G.G.’s best interests.

Vi Rose’s daughter Olivia (duckbilled Keke Palmer) thinks that to win they should try to incorporate hipper music into their antics. Soon enough, G.G.’s grandson, Randy (Jeremy Jordan) shows up, falls in love with Olivia, and teaches Vi Rose’s son, Marcus (Jesse L. Martin), how to control his Asperger’s by playing T-Pain’s “I’m in Love with a Stripper” on the piano. But now Pastor Dale thinks it costs too much to send them to Los Angeles to win the big competition so G.G. and Vi Rose must come together to make everything work out in the end.

What writer/director Todd Graff has managed to craft here is a film that seems entirely made up of deleted/alternate/extended scenes. Not one transitional scene is on display. Everything literally just bounces around from one thing to the next and with many scenes dragging on for an eternity. There’s even a scene that’s obviously cut from an earlier scene used later as if it’s a whole new day taking place within the film (pay close attention to what characters are wearing). Graff also thinks that a wacky subplot involving choir members Earla (Angela Grovey) and Mr. Hsu (Francis Jue), where she kills him after a night of premarital sex due to his high blood pressure, is just the kind of padding an already far too long film needs.

Article Author: Cinenerd

A Utah based writer, born and raised in Salt Lake City, UT for better and worse. Cinenerd has had an obsession with film his entire life, finally able to write about them since 2009, and the only thing he loves more are his wife and their two wiener dogs (Beatrix Kiddo and Pixar Animation). …

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