Studio: Paramount
Website: http://www.fightingtemptations.com/home.html
Release Date: 2003-09-19
Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr., Beyonce Knowles, Mike Epps, Faith Evans, Steve Harvey
Director: Jonathan Lynn
Screenwriter: Rick Famuyiwa, David Raynr, Elizabeth Hunter
WorkNameSort: The Fighting Temptations
Our Rating: 2.00
Cuba Gooding Jr. is just Gary Coleman with slightly better genes, so it's a big duh! that his mugging is the worst thing about this gospel makeover of "The Commitments." Co-star Beyoncé Knowles is no Streep either: Check out the vast amount of edits that seem to have been required just to feign an unbroken conversation between the two of them. He plays a Madison Avenue fraud forced into prepping a church choir for a big championship; she's the hot-stuff vocalist who could win it all for the team. The story is slapdash and most of the jokes are lame, but music by the Reverend Shirley Caesar and the Blind Boys of Alabama lends fleeting touches of a grace that's, um, amazing.
