'Joyful Noise' makes a playful racket

PG-13 (strong language, sexual reference); 115 min.

Joyful Noise, sort of a Glee-meets-gospel music choral-competition musical, makes a pleasant enough racket. A cheerful, not-quite-off-color crowd-pleaser that rarely breaks formula, it's the big-screen equivalent of a sloppy smooch from your overaffectionate aunt over the holidays.

Writer-director Todd Graff, who specializes in this sort of cheerful, campy musical ( Bandslam, Camp), lured Dolly Parton back from the surgically altered wilderness and paired her with Queen Latifah. They play two big belters with competing visions of how their integrated small-town church choir can win the big Joyful Noise choir contest.

Vi Rose (Queen Latifah) takes over as choir director when the longtime director (Kris Kristofferson) has a heart attack and dies after a performance. G.G. (Parton), his widow and the choir's big financial benefactor, isn't happy about that. But she grits her teeth and carries on, delivering homespun wisecracks along the way.

What Graff fails to do in this "big game" formula film is to give the story a villain, someone or something to overcome and root against. He rubs the edges off his two leads, who harmonize onstage and barely set off sparks in their arguments offstage. The choir's big rivals in choral competition are underdeveloped, and the long-suffering pastor (Courtney B. Vance) isn't that much of a threat to "shut down the choir."

But the music, which includes gospel takes on Maybe I'm Amazed and Man in the Mirror, makes this a fine showcase for the voices, and everybody gets his or her solo.

-- Roger Moore, McClatchy Tribune News Service