Joyful Noise

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Steve G @SteveG177 Dec 13 Everything in this movie is terrible other than Dolly Parton (who is a national treasure) and the music, which is quite good and sometimes great--it is well worth listening to the soundtrack. Otherwise, the film has very predictable plot lines. Choir has one last chance to go to a national competition, but its two talented stars can't get along. There's conflict between sticking with the dusty old songs that always lose, and going with the hip, fresh, re-imagined pop songs that make everyone smile and dance and sing with pop star spectacle and passion. They face impossible odds against unbeatable choirs, unless they somehow figure out the perfect song at the last minute. The good-natured new kid has a town bully bent on stealing the female lead from him. I don't even have to mention how every one of these conflicts ends, because we've seen these plots 100 times. Everything is lazy. The dialogue, the acting, the pace, and the character realism and development. But good music. See more Madam D @Madam1948 Aug 31 Some excellent music & great singers. Just not enough plot to make a decent movie. See more Michael C @Coxmjc23 07/19/2025 Still one of my favorite all time movies!!! Everyone in this film is so amazing and still sounds amazing!!! ICONIC!!! See more Jonathan O @RT41230270 06/28/2025 Unjoyful religious musical comedy See more 06/17/2022 This feels like an afterschool special - has about the depth of a Hallmark Christmas movie. It was an OK movie to watch with older family members. See more 08/06/2020 I wouldn’t call Joyful Noise obnoxious or annoying, it’s not coherent enough to earn one of those adjectives. This film is more baffling than anything else. The plot is an absolute mess of nonsense, and it feels like an insane person had a hand in writing it. There are so many moments in this movie where it takes a left turn and starts another subplot out of nowhere, as if Todd Graff (the writer/director) was just sitting there saying “I’ve seen something like this before in a movie, let’s do that.” This movie is so overrun with B-plots, that it feels like they forgot to even have an A-plot. Then there are moments of conflict that come out of nowhere and are resolved by the next scene. Perhaps the most blatant example of the failings of this odd script is the scene where Keke Palmer’s character confronts her mother (played by Queen Latifah) and suggests that her mom is jealous of her because she is beautiful. The rant that Latifah spouts is one of the most hilariously off-the-wall things I’ve ever heard. I was crying because I laughed so hard at that nonsense, and one scene later the two reconcile as if none of that ever happened. (I recommend everyone scout out a youtube video of that speech for just a taste of the nuttiness Joyful Noise delivers.) I’d like to say the music saves this movie, because I am a sucker for a good song even in a wretched film. I will say that the quality of the singing in Joyful Noise is superb, but I was surprised to find the songs themselves so uninspiring. Even the big number at the end is a lackluster medley of songs that didn’t exactly gel into something remarkable. The best songs are actually in the smaller moments when people don’t even have a great reason to be singing. There’s a strange enjoyment I got out of Joyful Noise that is the closest I’ll probably ever come to liking a “so-bad-it’s-good” movie. I could literally write for hours on all the little things going on in this movie and discuss how it handles none of them well. I don’t think someone could construct a movie this bad on purpose, it feels like something that has to start from a sincere desire to make something good, and then you stumble all the way through. I want to be offended as a Christian because Joyful Noise is yet another Christian movie that caters to the lowest-common-denominator and makes believers look bad in the process, but I’m not even sure this was intended to be a Christian film at all. Every message or lesson it may be teaching is incomprehensible, but in a strange way that made it funny. See more Read all reviews

Joyful Noise

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