The Fighting Temptations

The Fighting Temptations_360P

it's a movie fill with euphoria: emotions; love; envy; reconciliation and to remain happy ever after.

love this movie

source: The Fighting Temptations

The song and dance and high energy expressions of faith and joy were a delight-- too bad the plot didn't have as much going for it. Cuba Gooding is a remarkably talented guy, as in fact, were many of the cast members... the script just didn't give them much to work with. The plot is predictable and formulaic-- which isn't necessarily a terrible thing if it never-the-less shows you a really good time anyway. This movie tries to, but just falls flat whenever the music stops. It was worth watching for the rousing good music, but certainly not something I feel any need to add to my dvd collection and ever watch again.

The Fighting Temptations was mean-spirited and way too shallow for my liking. In a way I suppose it does expose the religious hypocrisy that goes on a lot now a days, but the way it was done was cruel and mean- spirited. Many of the characters are hard to root for, and while Cuba Gooding does his best with the material, his character is very hard to relate too. I think the producers of this movie expected a big hit, because they brought in Beyonce and figured it would be the revival Cuba needed, but there is too much wrong with it too work. The music itself was quite impressive at times, Beyonce can really do no wrong with her voice, and I especially enjoyed the guys from the jail who were doing the creative rapping, but I feel this should have been light-hearted fun, and in the end it took itself much too seriously a lot of the time. Cuba's charisma serves him well in this movie, but not well enough to make this anything more than mediocre, and it's a shame too because it had all the potential in the world to be a great musical. Performances. Cuba Gooding Jr's charisma makes him better than he has any right to be here, but his character does many things I didn't like. Beyoncé Knowles is gorgeous to look at, but her character is rather shallow and she had her wooden moments, while her chemistry with Cuba felt off. Golden Girl fans may recognize Rue McClanahan has a small role here, she's pretty much wasted. Wendell Pierce had a nice comic touch as the Reverend, I enjoyed his performance. LaTanya Richardson plays one of the most unlikable and despicable religious woman I've ever seen in my lifetime, she did her job well. Bottom line. It has its moments, but not enough to make it a quality flick. It's really mediocre when it all comes down to it, and I really can't recommend this than anything more than if nothing else is on the T.V. 4/10

Back in the days when Beyonce still needed a last name (and so in this movie she's Beyonce Knowles) somebody decided to make a movie. It's a bad movie, about a struggling church choir that has to turn itself around to win a big gospel music competition. Yes, there's definite shades of "Sister Act" here, and the engine that moves everything forward is a storyline that was exhausted decades ago - a guy inherits a bunch of money but has to do something crazy to get it. Beyonce can sing - thankfully - and they had some half decent singers helping her out - again, thankfully, because without a little bit of half decent music to listen to this would have been a truly dismal experience. The guy who inherits the money is Darrin Hill, a New York junior ad exec who loses his job when it's discovered that he faked his resume and then heads back home to Monte Carlo, Georgia, where his great aunt has just died. Aunt Sally has left him $150,000 - on condition that he take over as leader of the choir at the church he attended as a boy and leads them to victory at "Gospel Explosion." Since Darrin happens to have a lot of debt, he agrees, even though he knows nothing about music and cares little about the church. Darrin is played by Cuba Gooding, Jr., who looked miscast and uncomfortable in the role from beginning to end. Beyonce played Lilly, whom Darrin knew as a child at the church and who's now a lounge singer whom Darrin recruits to be the lead singer. Neither are welcomed by the pastor's sister (LaTanya Richardson), who has been the head of the choir and who basically runs the church and runs roughshod over her pastor brother (Wendell Pierce), since she sees both as unrepentant sinners, a feeling that grows as Darrin recruits anyone and everyone from the local barber to a bunch of prison inmates to help out. Richardson's character of Paulina is the absolutely required hypocritical church member - because there has to be a mean, nasty, hypocritical Christian in any movie featuring a church. If it weren't for the music (some of which is entertaining) dreadful would be sufficient to sum this movie up. The music raises it up one level to just plain awful. There's no charm in it, and while there are a few humorous scenes near the beginning, by a half hour in this has become a chore to try to watch. Eventually this becomes just plain irritating as we wait for what we know is going to be the inevitable outcome, hoping to just get this over with as soon as possible. For some absolutely mystifying reason, the cast even included as a choir member Rue McClanahan, who has virtually no lines, making me wonder if the producers just felt they needed a recognizable white face in this - because I honestly can't think of a single thing she contributed to the movie other than - well - a recognizable white face. (2/10)

2 hours of your life you will NEVER see again. Why anyone thought it would be a good idea to remake Sister Act is beyond me. And, incredibly, they managed to make it worse. Bouncy Knowles is a great singer and an OK actress, but she can't make up for a terrible movie that, although it claims to be a comedy, did not make me laugh once. Cuba Gooding Junior's career hit a high point with Jerry Maguire but his recent output just seems to get poorer and poorer. (Boat Trip was OK, I suppose, but the joke wore thin pretty quick.) In summary, (in case you hadn't guessed) this is an awful movie whose only possible redeeming feature is the songs. If you're that desperate to hear them, buy the soundtrack.

This movie is a very sloppy one. The story is filled with some unlikely events and characters and the directing and especially editing is seriously flawed mostly. Still thanks to its music, this movie still has some entertainment value and also somewhat still works as a 'feel good movie'. Perhaps the biggest problem with the movie is that the comedy and drama elements of the movie are not balanced out very well. At times the movie can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. A result of this is that most of the comedy feels out of place and seriously mistimed. The movie becomes never funny to watch because of this but the warm feel good atmosphere of the movie still somewhat compensates for this. Cuba Gooding Jr. seriously needs to start looking for another agent. I mean this is an Oscar winning actor but yet he appears in movies like "Chill Factor", "Pearl Harbor" and "Boat Trip"? I mean, what's up with that? He deserves to play better roles in better movies. This movie is also one of those movies in which he feels out of place. I know he can play comical roles well but in this movie he just never gets enough opportunity to show this. As a matter of fact, none of the characters in the movie work out or feel deep enough. The movie seems to concentrate more (and too much) on its music than on its characters and story in general. I seriously don't think that Beyoncé Knowles is a bad actress but just like Cuba, her role isn't significant- and present enough in the movie. Rue McClanahan also somehow got mixed up in this mess. At times it just totally feels like entire sequences in the movie are missing. Lots of moments in the movie feel rushed and are not satisfying enough. The movie is a real sloppy job. You can't just blame the script for this but also the filmmakers involved. Yes, it's a real mess of a movie at times, that too often takes the easy simple road. But yet the movie still works good thanks to its music. It makes the movie very pleasant to watch and therefor the movie still works good as a simple feel good movie. But that obviously doesn't mean that the movie itself is also a good one. The movie is too flawed in its story and way of film-making to consider this movie a good or totally recommendable one. There still is enough to enjoy in this movie but the sloppy way of film-making and storytelling don't make this movie really a recommendable one. Perhaps this movie is a typical case of 'watch at your own risk'...chances are you might end up loving- or totally hating it. 5/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I can not believe I almost forgot to write about this film. It was a rare one that I really enjoyed. It had some funny moments and some great music. Now I'm not saying this movie was perfect b/c it was far from it but it was very entertaining and sometimes that is what a movie is supposed to be. The acting was okay and Beyonce is not bad at acting and is great at singing. The plot was nothing monumental but it dealt with something my wife was actually going through at the time. I will definitely own this movie.