Joyful Noise (2012)

All Critics (120) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (80) | DVD (2)

[A] mostly sweet-natured rehash of 'Sister Act 2' by way of 'Glee'...

June 27, 2012 Full Review

Guy Lodge

Time Out

Top Critic

"Joyful Noise" is a sort of Wal-Mart movie, not exactly trendsetting but a decent enough offering for the heartland.

January 17, 2012 Full Review

Colin Covert

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Top Critic

You'll find yourself rolling your eyes, but you'll have more fun if you try to roll them in time with the rollicking numbers.

January 15, 2012 Full Review

David Edelstein

New York Magazine

Top Critic

Has the good fortune of being acted with enthusiasm by a very appealing cast, or else it would be completely unbearable instead of just mundane.

January 15, 2012 Full Review

Eric D. Snider

Film.com

Top Critic

This movie is a cloying, over-the-top, cheesy sing-a-long that makes "Glee" seem subtle.

January 13, 2012 Full Review | Comments (6)

Richard Roeper

Richard Roeper.com

Top Critic

[It] bears almost all the liabilities one gets from current studio product, including bloating.

January 13, 2012 Full Review

Glenn Kenny

MSN Movies

Top Critic

In what ends up as a nightmarish fusion of Glee and Sister Act 2, a mixed-race church choir makes a bid for glory by painfully "Christianising" scraps of once perfectly acceptable pop songs.

March 14, 2013 Full Review

Andy Lea

Daily Star

If you've the slightest aversion to camp, you should obviously steer clear. But then this film was never for you. It's for the spiritual year-round inhabitants of Dollywood.

March 4, 2013 Full Review

Catherine Bray

Film4

If you've the slightest aversion to camp, you should obviously steer a million miles clear. But then this film was never for you.

July 4, 2012 Full Review

Film4

Disarmingly heart-warming in its musical prowess and lazy in its storytelling development, hoping that the former - plus the big names - will attract a large enough crowd to keep it buoyant at the box office.

June 29, 2012 Full Review

Lisa Giles-Keddie

Real.com

Even numbers by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson take on a religious note. Not much of a God-given screenplay, however.

June 29, 2012 Full Review

This is London

Corny and contrived, this provides both leading ladies with sweet ballads and tart one-liners and at least they resisted the temptation to set it all at Christmas.

June 29, 2012 Full Review

Allan Hunter

Daily Express

Larger than life and twice as loud, Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton trade snappy one-liners and spirited musical numbers in Joyful Noise, an enjoyably corny musical comedy about a gospel choir seeking to uplift a depressed Southern town.

June 29, 2012 Full Review

Jason Best

Movie Talk

In the end, it's impossible to resist the film's exuberant high spirits.

June 28, 2012 Full Review

Christopher Tookey

Daily Mail [UK]

Todd Graff's film sags badly in the middle and is clunky with social context (recession, Asperger's), but there's enough good heart to see you through.

June 28, 2012 Full Review

Catherine Shoard

Guardian [UK]

Actor-turned-director Todd Graff actually knows what he's doing.

June 28, 2012 Full Review

Tim Robey

Daily Telegraph

As manufactured, saccharine and unsubtle as Parton, but who's to mess with a winning formula?

June 28, 2012 Full Review

Bethany Rutter

Little White Lies

It's let down by a meandering, unfocussed script, some poor direction and a handful of missed opportunities.

June 27, 2012 Full Review

Matthew Turner

ViewLondon

Only when the script takes a back seat to song does the the film live up to its title.

June 26, 2012 Full Review

Michael Dequina

TheMovieReport.com

Overlong and mind-numbingly generic, Joyful Noise promises home-cooked charm but leaves a taste worse than day-old grits.

June 26, 2012 Full Review

Shaun Munro

What Culture

Hard as it tries to be harmless feel-good fodder, its notion that one character's Asperger's can be cured by a hearty sing-song makes it a more offensive musical than Team America ever dared.

June 22, 2012 Full Review

Owen Nicholls

Total Film

If only writer-director Graff had injected the film with half as much earthy energy as he puts into the terrific musical numbers. And let the cast out of the box.

June 21, 2012 Full Review

Rich Cline

Shadows on the Wall

A movie about a gospel music competition should be fun and inspiring; Joyful Noise is lumbering and dull.

April 30, 2012 Full Review

Mike McGranaghan

Aisle Seat

For me, the syrupy, melodramatic story line, with its wholly unbelievable characters, got in the way of any sort of enjoyment. (Blu-ray Combo edition)

April 29, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

• 1. Vi Rose Hill: People who ain't around much tend to make fewer mistakes!
  – Submitted by Tonimarie P (11 months ago)
• 1. Vi Rose Hill: I am an incandescent, board certified, super model baby!
  – Submitted by Kat K (12 months ago)
• 1. Vi Rose Hill: Quit it with those nails; Edward Scissor-Hands.
  – Submitted by Bradley T (12 months ago)
• 1. Vi Rose Hill: You better treat my snoring like a Marvin Gaye love song.
  – Submitted by Chynna J (15 months ago)
• 1. G.G. Sparrow: God gave us daughters so our mothers could say I told you so.
  – Submitted by Lisa T (15 months ago)
• 1. G.G. Sparrow: Well I am who I am!
  2. Vi Rose Hill: Maybe you were, five procedures ago!
  – Submitted by Sarah D (15 months ago)

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