One Minute Movie Review: Joyful Noise

The best way to describe this Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah duet is just noise, and remarkably little of it is joyful. Provided to us by Director Todd Graff whose biggest credit is the film Bandslam, and if you said what is Bandslam, you are not alone. His attempt to create an uplifting tale of family and faith fails and, instead becomes pretensious and uninspired. The acting is corny, thanks to a choppy script that tries too hard with too little. The banter between characters is stale, cold, and, at times, just downright goofy. The humor is ill timed, badly delivered, and silly. Each time the actors try to connect, the poorly written screenplay gets in the way, and the players come off disjointed and boring instead of engaging and authentic. And, nothing personal, but Parton needs to lay of the plastic surgery, I do not know if she is trying to one up Joan Rivers, or achieve the look of the Joker on Meth. Either way, in this farce, her acting and singing are just as artificial. Latifah does not fare much better. The movie works hard to deliver a heavy emphasis on song, which quickly and mercilessly becomes overbearing and tedious. 0 out of 5 Kernels: this "churchy" flick is so awful it become its own new sin.