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Film Spotlight: Lionsgate's newest comedy "Joyride" was not a Joyride!
111 Plays1 year ago
In this week’s Film Spotlight! Tommy reviews Lionsgate’s newest film “Joyride”! Thanks again to Lionsgate for the early screening. This episode was a lot of fun and we hope you all enjoy the episode and we will see you next week!
Thanks to our sponsors of this show:
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Lastly, thanks to our editor Colin Gallagher for making this show happen!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Episode and Film Joyride
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone, to episode five of the film spotlight series. For all you who don't know me, I'm Tommy. I'm one of the hosts of the popcorn podcast. Ryan's not here right now. Ryan is at work, so he was not able to make it for this one. But we are going to do a film spotlight together, or at least one with Ryan that he does by himself. But we are here today to talk about Lionsgate's newest film, Joyride, which thanks Lionsgate, me and two of my friends get to go see early.
00:00:29
Speaker
which was a lot of fun. But yeah, this is the fifth one I'm doing of Film Spotlight. And yeah, I really like doing these episodes. They're a lot more fun. They're easy. And yeah, they don't take as long, which is super nice. And I get to talk about any movie I want to talk about. And yeah, it's really a lot of fun.
Joyride's Reception and Style
00:00:51
Speaker
So as I said, we're here to talk about Jewelry Ride, which was directed by Adele Lean. And it was distributed, as I said, by Lionsgate.
00:00:58
Speaker
Nathan Matthew David did the music and Point Grey Pictures was the production company. This film, it's very divisive so far among critics and fans. It stars Ashley Park as Audrey, Stephanie Shue as Cab, Sherry Cola as Lolo, and Sabrina Wu as Deadeye. And just right from the get-go before I do the synopsis, before I get into what everyone's saying about it, like reviews and then my personal opinion,
00:01:28
Speaker
This film is not for the faint of heart. It is definitely raunchy and just everything that you can expect from like an early 2000s road trip comedy.
00:01:43
Speaker
But this one just does it so much worse. It's just not as well made. And it's just not as funny as I wanted it to be. This movie could have been hysterical. And I will say the first act, very funny, very good. I was super excited and I was really enjoying myself, especially. I just thought it was funny. It was good comedy. They didn't. It wasn't any woke comedy or anything like that. They they were willing to say whatever they felt like saying when they said it.
00:02:12
Speaker
And I really liked that. And then eventually it got to the point where it was a little too much that it wasn't even enjoyable anymore.
00:02:20
Speaker
But I might not...
Critiques on Joyride's Structure and Content
00:02:24
Speaker
I don't know where I'm at in between critics and all that because as of right now, the film is sitting out of 6.9 out of 10 IMDb, a 49% on Google, 100% on Fandango, and then it has a 91% critic score and a 100% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Excuse me. Joyride isn't... And this is what the critics are saying. Oh my goodness gracious.
00:02:50
Speaker
The cookies are mine tomatoes or something else. Uh, the critic consensus so far is that Joyride isn't afraid to shock with gross out gags. This road trip, real surprise, how successful blends the raunchy humor with real heart. And I will say going towards the end of this movie, the third act, it is very heartfelt. It is sad. It is, but
00:03:11
Speaker
The first, if you make a movie, every act needs to feel that way. Not the first act feels one way, the second act feels like a whole different movie, and the third act feels like a whole different movie. It never, at least for me, it never felt like a continuing story. And the jokes that they could have made, like continuous jokes throughout the movie, they chose not to. Which I thought would have been a lot funnier.
00:03:34
Speaker
A lot more funny, funnier, whatever. But yeah, this this movie definitely, for me at least, it just struggled to find itself. And it was really disappointing because I watched the trailers. I was like, OK, this has a chance to actually be really good. Seth Rogen is one of the producers on this film. I was just excited. Like, I really thought this movie had a chance to be something really funny. It had a great cast surrounding it. And it just wasn't it.
00:04:02
Speaker
Like, if you've seen the trailers, there's the scene where they perform WAP, the Cardi B song. It's one of the cringiest scenes in a movie I've ever watched. I mean, my friend wanted to get up and leave at that point. And I'm not gonna lie, I started feeling the same way.
00:04:18
Speaker
There's a lot of nudity, which I don't care. If you want to do nudity in your film, then do nudity. But make it that it means something. It's not just there to be nudity. Stephanie Shue's character has a tattoo in her.
00:04:33
Speaker
Private area and it's of Satan and it's just a weird scene like I Get showing it because that's what the whole joke continues to be throughout the whole movie that she has one She's like no, I gotta remove it. It was just a little sunflower and it's just not it's just this massive tattoo of Satan
00:04:51
Speaker
And then they like do shots from inside looking out of it at the characters. I don't know, just stuff like that. It's one of the reasons I kind of fell off with Big Mouth because I did really like the early seasons of Big Mouth. I thought it was quite funny. But eventually it just got to the point where it was just.
00:05:11
Speaker
It was just showing nudity and stuff. Like it was just weird to be weird. And so is this. It didn't for the story at all. It didn't. It wasn't very funny. And it just it just seemed a little pointless. And I know that I'm doing nothing but bragging on this movie right now. And I don't want it to come off that like I just hate it.
Tommy's Rating and Final Thoughts on Joyride
00:05:30
Speaker
I hate it. I gave it a fifty five because it is a comedy. It's a raunchy comment. I'm not the biggest fan of that kind of stuff except what I love, like Superbad, which I thought maybe they implement a little bit super into this.
00:05:42
Speaker
But they just didn't. And yeah, the the cast is good. They all play their characters very well. I think it's Audrey, played by Ashley Park. She was really funny. She was probably the best by the movie. I love Stephanie Shue. I think she's good and everything. Sabrina Wu's Dead Eye surprised me because in the trailer I thought that I was going to be the worst character and very annoying.
00:06:08
Speaker
She's not. She's actually. She's actually pretty funny and. But all in all, the movie just. Isn't good. It should have been a lot better if they followed the first act and the end of the movie. You you have a solid comedy movie and it truly is heartbreaking because the whole movie is about Audrey and she's going. She's going to China because for a work trip, but then her best friend. Lolo, she wants.
00:06:38
Speaker
Audrey to go meet her mom because Audrey was adopted and yeah, it's just that's what she wants to do with very Audrey's very again sick and she's as they say in the movie she's become very whitewashed and they call her racist against her own people and stuff like that but the synopsis for this film is
00:07:00
Speaker
When Audrey's business trip to Asia goes sideways, she enlists with the help of Lolo, her childhood best friend, Kat, a college friend, and Deadeye Lolo's eccentric cousin. Their epic no holds barred experience becomes a journey of bonding, friendship, and belonging.
00:07:14
Speaker
and wild debauchery that reveals the universal truth of what it means to know and love who you are. And if that's what the synopsis really was and that's what the movie was, then this way would have been a lot better than what we got. It takes a huge turn away from that in the second act for about 40 minutes. And those 40 minutes are not funny. It's just disgusting.
00:07:38
Speaker
It's just it's just not funny. It's just weird to be weird, as I've said multiple times during this episode. And that's a it's a huge fault. And I know people are like, oh, like movies can be like that. I'm not saying they can't be raunchy. And maybe those movies just aren't for me. So. Yeah, Joyride, it's.
00:08:00
Speaker
If you love like early 2000s raunchy comedy road trips, then yeah, you'll probably really enjoy this movie. But if you don't, then you will not like this movie at all. Like both the people I went saw with hated the movie. They definitely did not like at all. I at least have parts of this movie I did enjoy. There are funny lines. But like most recent comedies, at least for these last five years.
00:08:23
Speaker
Most of them, the best jokes are in the trailer and this movie does exactly that. All the funniest lines, funniest moments are all showed in every trailer. So. Yeah, it's I hate that's one of the things I hate about trailers is, especially with comedies, they tend to give away some of the best stuff. And maybe if you trim it down a little bit, should maybe some of the not as great stuff, but still funny enough.
00:08:49
Speaker
then I think people will enjoy the movie more because they don't know the certain jokes are coming. And there's some crazy sequences though in this movie. There's like a sex montage that's like five minutes long. Um, there's just a lot of different scenes, but different choices too. Um, but no, the movie, how do I want to word this?
Box Office Predictions and Personal Preferences
00:09:15
Speaker
The movie isn't awful. It's just not for me.
00:09:19
Speaker
That's why I didn't give it like the fours. I gave it a 55 because it's close to being passing for me. But just maybe I don't want to hate on too much because it's not my type of movie, just like how Breaking Bad will always be on my top 10 list, even though if I don't think it's one of the best shows of all time. It's just kind of like not not for me. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't there's movies you like and you hear us talking about, we don't like it. There's nothing wrong with that because I know a lot of you really enjoyed The Flash while me and Ryan did not.
00:09:47
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, but that's all okay. And I'm still really thankful that Lionsgate gave me a chance to go watch this early. There are good scenes and it kind of felt like they were setting up a second one, but going off of this weekend's box office and next week's box office, I have a feeling this movie is not going to be the best because it has to go up against Insidious, Indiana Jones, and next week, next week or two weeks from now.
00:10:13
Speaker
Two weeks from now, it's going to have to go up against Mission Impossible. So. Yeah, this movie, I think, is going to flop a little bit. Excuse me. And yeah, it's just not my type of movie, but if you guys like the raunchy comedies, please go check it out because there are good scenes. It's just not for me. But yeah, I think it's really all I have to say about.
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:10:42
Speaker
Joyride so thanks again the Lionsgate. Thank you guys for checking in and tuning into this episode the film spotlight This episode comes out today, which is Thursday and then tomorrow you guys will get another episode just me sadly and That will be me reviewing Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny. I'm really excited to talk about Yeah, thank you guys for tuning into the show again and continue sharing liking and keep following us on tick-tock Yeah, thank you guys