Joyful Noise (Blu-ray Review)

• Reviewed by: Barrie Maxwell
• Review Date: Jun 11, 2012
• Format: Blu-ray Disc
• 

Review

The idea of the film Joyful Noise is much more interesting in the telling than the actual execution. In brief, Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton are the leading women behind the church choir of a small Georgia town fallen on hard times.

A success for the choir at the national "Joyful Noise Competition" could lift all spirits, but each leading lady has her own ideas of how best to move forward to success when the choir's director (Kris Kristofferson wasted in one of the smallest cameos on record) dies suddenly. The film is obviously intended to inspire, but a less inspiring effort is hard to imagine. The two main stars (who rarely seem any less than larger than life in most of their films) never seem that engaged and all the supporting plot threads about family dynamics and church finances just hang limply. One would think it pretty difficult to not get the toes tapping with some stirring gospel music but director Todd Graff manages it. It doesn't even work if you take your eyes off the screen and just let the sound act as background music for some other activity you might want to pursue. Warner Bros. has released the film on a Bu-ray disc that meets its duty visually (via a 2.40:1 image) and sonically (via 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio) were there anything that much worth actually to see and hear. The supplements consist of about half a dozen quite short pieces that touch on production issues, deleted scenes, extended songs, and one of the songs Dolly Parton wrote for the film. A good opportunity to save money for other more worthy discs!

- Barrie Maxwell