Praise This 2023 Will Make You Think “Praise Who?”

Praise This 2023 is a disappointing attempt at emulating the musical fun, creativity, and collaboration of Pitch Perfect. Praise This presents such an underwhelming rendition of gifted musicality that you may begin to question whether you no longer enjoy music or if the musical numbers are really that soulless.

Praise This 2023 | 3 Reasons It’s Disappointing

When Sam (Chloe Bailey) is taken to live in Atlanta with her Aunt, Uncle, and over-enthusiastic cousin, she is forced to join the church's underdog competitive praise team as a punishment for her rebelliousness.

These 3 parts of Praise This are the most disappointing: the excessive “Main Character Energy”, the soulless music, and the artificial vibes of the characters and script.

1. The Main Character Energy is Too Strong

When you’re working in a team, especially a musical team, the most significant part about it is utilizing everyone’s strengths to build something grander than yourself.

In Praise This, rather than create something bigger than the individual, the whole objective seemed to be to make the main character, Sam, bigger. To elevate Sam and her talents while the rest of the praise team blindly follows her lead and backs her up.

Seeing the whole world revolve around Sam and seeing her consistently get her way regardless of whether she deserves it or not is quite irritating and limiting to the potential of this narrative concept.

There are so many other characters whose lives, desires, dreams, and talents are completely and utterly neglected in this movie. Including new elements about other characters could have added more depth and intrigue to this whole shebang.

There is a point in the movie where Sam is sitting in T.Y’s (aka Quavo’s) studio, recording a track as if this moment is supposed to be part of her studio album music video. It really just felt like “The Chloe Bailey Show.” And I have nothing against her, it’s just that this movie has the potential to be so much more than that and they dropped the ball. Hard.

The story downplays the other praise team member’s abilities making it seem as though Sam is the only person with true, valuable talent on the team, which completely forfeits the need for anyone else to even be there. It might as well have been an episode of The Voice or American Idol.

The rest of the Praise Team is grossly underutilized which contributes to the painfully underwhelming music that ensues.

The Music Is Soulless

How are you gonna sing gospel music with no soul?

Like — that is the whole point!

It doesn’t matter how “cool”, “familiar”, or “mainstream” the beat sounds if the heart of the music is void of substance.

Nor does it matter how nice your voice sounds, how clean your runs are, or how high your pitch can go.

All of the music comes from a place of showing off, garnering self-praise, and getting people’s attention. Because of this, the soul of everything feels very hollow.

Gospel, as I understand it, comes from a place of admitting your futility as a human. The recognition of your powerlessness. It’s a sacred emotional place where you acknowledge a purpose and a presence bigger than your own.

Praise This accomplished the exact opposite of that.

I didn’t feel ANYTHING listening to the music. No goosebumps, no awe, no urge to dance. It didn’t target the soul.

There is an unfortunate moment in the film where another “Praise Team” called The Prodigal Boys were rehearsing their sultry routine. These “Magic Mike” boys were still winking and grinding as they were singing about serving a mighty God.

The vibes, the energy, and the character’s intentions are very contradictory throughout the film. Who is it that we’re praising here? Really?

The mash-ups are so dreadfully boring, it’s hard to even appreciate them from a secular point of view.

I remember watching Pitch Perfect and being enchanted by the cup song, practicing it for hours until I got it right.

And I’ve watched the riff-off scene more times than I can count. Those musical moments brought something creative, engaging, and fresh to the table. In comparison, Praise This‘s contributions to the table are stale and unappetizing.

In addition to the drab musical composition, the choreography that accompanies it is equally as unimpressive.

None of the musicality naturally leads you to a place of admiration. If I were watching this story live, I would only clap out of pity. You know, the claps that really are just, “You tried…”

It Feels So Artificial

In Praise This, there is definitely an inconsistency in the quality of the acting across the board. Some people did okay and others often did too much.

It contributed to the artificiality of the whole production.

The narrative of the story is incredibly predictable and didn’t even attempt to surprise or enthrall the audience to any degree. In all honesty, I lost interest in the film about 30 minutes in and nothing in the story sparked any curiosity in me to make me want to care again.

Sam’s character development from the beginning of the movie to the end is strange, an unbelievable journey where you’re not really sure what she wants and who she is.

There are just too many inconsistencies within Sam. She’s a tough, stoic, mean person but then all of a sudden, she’s soft and apologetic. And it’s not really intuitively evident where the change in her is coming from. Just seems a bit out of the blue, enigmatic, and hard to empathize with.

While the main character is one huge question mark, an undefined personality that changes with no real meaning, all the other characters are very one-note.

Jess is just this coffee-hyped, optimistic ball of energy with no life outside of being Sam’s sidekick. Fallon, the leader of the opposing reigning champion praise team, is this unnecessarily harsh and overly overt “mean girl.”

The character-building feels like an unfinished sentence in the way that it

And the narrative plays out like a writing assignment that took some generic suggestions from Google before being turned in at the last minute.

I Can Still Praise This…

I did enjoy the judgmental aunties. They added some comedic relief with a twinge of PTSD.

And there are definitely some more moments of comedic relief throughout the film that did work to balance out the many comedic moments that didn’t.

Despite the many pitfalls and annoyances that arise with this film, it still holds a smidge of entertainment value.

In Conclusion…

Praise This, despite the title’s request, ironically does not naturally garner much praise. With dull musical moments, muddy characterization, and a lack of thematic focus, this movie leaves much wanting.

Praise This leaves you wondering, “Praise what?”

Rating 4.5/10

What are your thoughts on Praise This? Let me know in the comments below!

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Peace, love, and lots of popcorn,

IMO