Joyful Noise - 2 stars

This is a movie about a small town church choir and their aspirations to compete in the national Joyful Noise choir competition.

Queen Latifah plays Vi Rose Hill. She has just taken over as choir director when the previous director (Kris Kristofferson) died unexpectedly. She has two kids, a son with Asperger syndrome, and a daughter named Olivia (Keke Palmer), who seems to be the lead singer of the choir.

G. G. Sparrow (Dolly Parton), believes she should be the new choir director. Her late husband was the former choir director, and she helped him with the song arrangements. G. G.'s grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan) has just arrived in town, and he immediately becomes interested in Olivia.

Randy starts to sing in the choir, gives Vi's son piano lessons (apparently for free), and helps bring him out of his shell, but because there needs to be some conflict, Vi doesn't approve of him. She also refuses to modernize the songs the choir sings. Everyone but her wants to do more modern arrangements and even include some pop songs, but Vi is the most stubborn woman in town and she refuses.

This is a movie made for a Christian audience who loves gospel music. There is a lot of church, God, and faith in this movie. The writing is corny and the directing is horrible. There are cuts that make no sense, and there are a few too many scenes of Vi and Olivia having the same fight.

Latifah and Parton each get a big musical number, and they are good songs. I especially liked the scene where Dolly Parton is looking out the window, singing a song she used to sing with her late husband, and imagines him walking up to her and dancing. That (almost) brought a tear to my eye.

But real emotional scenes are few and far between. The rest are obvious and over the top. There are some laughs, but the funny scenes are juxtaposed with scenes that try to make you cry, and the combination doesn't really work.

If you like this music, buy the soundtrack rather than see the movie.