Review No.127: Joyful Noise

I shall soon be hearing singing everywhere I go as for the third time in a week I'm watching a musical however the performances in Joyful Noise are, on the whole, a lot more organic than the 80s hair metal mess of Rock of Ages or the David Bowie-heavy music of Hunky Dory. The opening scene of the film sees Kris Kristoffesen's choir master suffer a heart attack on stage later dying just as his choir get through to the regional semi-finals of the annual choir contest. His widow G.G., played by Dolly Parton, assumes that she'll take his place however Pastor Dale has other ideas planting Queen Latifah's Vi Rose as the new choir mistress. The obvious clashes between these two divas escalate as G.G.'s wayward grandson Randy arrives in town catching the eye of Vi Rose's daughter Olivia of whom her mother is over-protective and won't let her date boys. Randy tries to ingratiate himself into Vi Rose's good graces by teaching her son Walter, who has Asperger's Syndrome, to play piano however after the two of them get into a fight with Randy's romantic rival Manny he is banned from her house. Randy also tries to inject some new life into the choir, in order to win the contest, however Pastor Dale refuses to sponsor the choir if they deviate from their initial more reverent material. As well as the clash between the women and the romance between the teens there is an on-going storyline about the choir's Georgian hometown going through tough economic times as plenty of local stores are shut down while Vi Rose has to take on two jobs. At the end of the day though the story is all about whether the choir will succeed in the final part of the competition and whether they will stick with what they know or go in a different direction. What do you think?

I suppose Joyful Noise is meant to be predictable and for me it was mostly reminiscent of the two Sister Act movies, which I love, however it's nowhere near as good as either of those. In my opinion Queen Latifah is an under-rated screen presence while Dolly Parton, other than cameos and voice performances, hasn't appeared on screen since 2002's Frank McKlusky CI so you would think writer/director Todd Graff would want to utilise their talents. It's surprising then that they are mostly used as supporting players in the story of the teen romance between Randy and Olivia who aren't nearly as interesting as the two lead matriarchs mainly because, while they can both belt out a tune, neither Broadway star Jeremy Jordan or Children's TV favourite Keke Palmer radiate that much charisma. The best non-singing scene for me was the confrontation in a diner between Vi Rose and G.G., most of which is in the trailer, as Latifah and Parton really let rip here insulting each other mercilessly for great entertainment. Graff also tries to cram too many plot strands in personally I would've taken a chunk from the teen romance story and instead devoted more time to telling the story of this town under financial strain who find solace through the music the choir provide while another story involving a choir member who struggles to find a man seems only to be there to set up the final scene. Thankfully the music performances are all great with the majority of them used in the context of the competition and even those that aren't, such as when G.G. remembers singing with her husband, are done in a way that isn't too far-fetched. Joyful Noise is definitely the best pure musical I've seen all week, due to the way the musical numbers are produced, however for me the teen romance is dull and has too much time devoted to it in the process almost squandering the talents of two captivating screen personas.

Verdict: The brilliant chemistry between Latifah and Parton is squandered in a film which concentrates too much on the teen romance element however when its leading ladies are allowed the chance to shine the film lights up and at the same time the musical numbers are great so for that reason Joyful Noise gets 6/10

Review No.83: The Divide

So as well as the previous film Edge my next film The Divide came at the same time courtesy of LoveFilm and while I had a small smattering of knowledge of what I was getting into with Carol Morley's film I didn't however with this film. The Divide starts incredibly strong as we see nuclear explosions tear up New York City a group of tenants in a tower block rush to the basement where their janitor has a bunker. As well as the janitor, played by Terminator/Aliens alumni Michael Biehn, there are a pair of lovers, three brothers, an older gentleman and a mother and child all of whom have to survive together. The premise of the film then essentially is how long does it take before civilisation breaks down and everybody turns on everyone else? The answer is surprisingly not that long as almost immediately Milo Vetimiglia's Josh starts shouting at everyone while it becomes clear that Biehn's Mickey is hiding stuff from his fellow survivors. Though attempts at an escape are made it becomes clear that a group of men with Hasmat suits are carrying out some sort of experiment which means they have to kidnap the little girl. After being sealed in by these men things just break down as the majority of the characters become little more than animals as there is rape, torture and someone being set on fire before one of them finally escapes.

The opening few shots of The Divide promise so much as director Xavier Gens has obviously spent a lot of time thinking how he would like to destroy New York however is skill for designing these sort of shots is wasted in a film that is confined to a single setting that features characters who are mainly unlikeable. The cast aren't best-served by their characters however Lauren German does her best with plucky Eva while Rosanna Arquette's  Marilyn's dissension into madness is portrayed fairly well and Biehn is able to do creepy fairly well but that's about it. The major problem is that we don't spend a lot of the time getting to know these characters before they completely breakdown this is especially true of Courtney B Vance's Delvin of whom we learn little off at all. In fact I found a lot of the second half of this film hard to watch as the brothers take in turns raping Marilyn and tearing off Mickey's fingers. By the time the end finally came I was glad however I wished that these characters hadn't made it down to the basement in the first place as surely there were some nicer people who lived in their apartment block. Maybe that wouldn't have made for as much of a provocative film as this one is but I maybe would've cared a bit more when they started to die. With brief hints to the sort of film Gens wanted to make at the end of the day this was vulgar, unlikeable stuff for the most part and how it made it to the cinema is a mystery in itself.

Verdict: Though it has a good start increasingly vulgar material coupled with unlikeable characters means this one only gets a 2/10