Oh, Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton, we wanted better for you. Joyful Noise looks just about as hokey and trite as you’d expect a competitive-gospel-choir movie to be, and yet despite all evidence to the contrary — the horrendous jokes, the telegraphed story beats, the clichéd I’m-afraid-to-let-you-follow-your-dreams plot, and don’t forget the amazing differences between black people and white people — there’s still a tiny molecule of hope that Parton and Queen Latifah (with an assist from Keke Palmer?) can wrest this movie from abject awfulness on the power of their charisma alone. There doesn’t seem to be a chance for Joyful Noise to be good-good, but it could — oh, for the love of Dollywood! — approach TBS-staple good, somewhere in the Miss Congeniality/Bring It On/Sister Act women-in-contests zone. [Monkey See/NPR]
