These days I try to give everything a chance. I try to go into all kinds of new shows and films in hopes that I'll stumble across something I otherwise usually wouldn't. At one point this wasn't the case. I would stick to watching only what I knew I would like, and honestly, it became a horrible chore that made watching things far less enjoyable. The endless scroll and hunting, the endless judging of review scores and pushing aside anything that seemed to just not meet my stupidly high standards. Ignoring all of this and moving on to accept more unique creations, I have had a lot of fun discovering new things even if they aren't that great. And, with this, it's actually quite rare that I stumble across something that I genuinely can't finish or truly find terrible. Interestingly, this prior standard I had would not have worked with this film. Strangely, critics seem to love this film. And I even found that a bit odd given all I could think of was the absolute horror that was Sausage Party. A terrible animated film that ran rent free throughout my mind as I watched Joy Ride. All I knew while watching it, was that this certainly wasn't getting any joy from it, and that if this were a ride, I'd want to get off.
In fact, I was shocked at Joy Ride. I went into it expecting something completely different. A comedy, for sure, but one that would be about culture and actual self-discovery. The film to begin with certainly implied something as such, but very quickly took a dive. It is rare that I can't finish watching a film, but this reached a point in which I just couldn't take it anymore, and felt that the insufferable attempts at comedy only grew worse by the second. As it only continued to reject its main supposed plot idea in favour of degeneracy that just ramped up. Funnily, I'm convinced I sat through most of Joy Ride half-disgusted, half-confused expression; a near blank stare, semi-frowning and just still. This is the kind of film that stems from the mind of a terminally online Twitter user that throws out the edgiest imaginable jokes to the point where the repetition just gets annoying. Joy Ride is most certainly one of the worst films I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of bad films. A quick note: the other week I was watching parody films. They were better.
To give you an idea of how disgusting Joy Ride is: it is a film supposedly set in China. It was filmed entirely in Canada.
Joy Ride
Joy Ride's least offensive element comes from the directing itself. For what the film offers, visually it really isn't that bad. It's clear there's a good budget that went into the cinematography and often creating some well-lit and composed images. To begin with, I actually quite liked how it looked. But I quickly grew to hate what it was showing me. The editing didn't seem so bad, either. For the attempts at comedic moments, it would ramp up and adjust to them while also knowing when to slow down and attempt to introduce some pacing between the attempts at jokes. The main problem with the film? The attempts at jokes. I mentioned before the animated film Sausage Party, if you unfortunately saw that film, this is basically the live action version of that. These Asian women are sent on a business trip to secure a deal with a Chinese company; the main protagonist takes along a friend, who also brings along a friend. We find out our protagonist is adopted and doesn't know her birth mother, and one of the friends hints that it could be a good idea while in China to try to find her. At first the film feels like it'll be some exploration of heritage, a life lesson that is gained by exploring the nation and culture of which she ultimately comes from but didn't grow up with, having been raised by a white American family in the United States.
I was prepared for a narrative like this, though the film completely throws this idea aside until these disgusting women insist on bringing it up again at various points in the film, again implying that it may be some greater aspect of character development that'll have importance in the story. For the most part, it doesn't. Instead this idea is only ever mentioned for these nasty characters to potentially use to benefit financially. They actually have the idea of only finding her birth mother in hopes that it may increase their chances at increasing ties with the Chinese company due to their cultural similarities. Now, I'm not from an Asian culture, but if I was, this idea would really sicken me. To have a film seemingly be for Asians and spreading the culture and ideology, only to insult it. What's more strange is how the film seems to feel the need to try to spread awareness and connectivity with Asian culture. Lots of kpop references, Chinese drama references, the Chinese culture itself referenced. It plays itself like a comedy film that wants to support Asian culture, but seems almost as if it's completely stereotyping it without any real awareness of what it may be. For example: one scene shows the women on a train in China, a foreign woman is a drug mule and decides she's going to use them to hide the drugs from the searching police on the train, for no real reason, all of the characters abide, stuffing drugs into their orifices in a weird montage that seems like they're actually proud of it all. To which they later brag about it all.
This isn't even the most vulgar part of the film. It gets worse, even despite every single joke being about vaginas or sex. And these attempts at jokes come almost in every minute of the film, repeated often as if we never heard them the first time. By far, it's the vulgarity that absolutely threw me off with Joy Ride. It feels the need to mention something disgusting far too often and relies on it while having zero awareness. It makes every character seem highly obnoxious, vulgar, and downright annoying. The full extent of their personalities being oriented around sex and their bodies and horribly unappealing histories. I really do not understand how anyone could see these characters and believe they're anything remotely inspiring or something to like. I could understand if the comedy came from them being horrible people and the shock value being the comedy as these individuals fail to learn and improve themselves, but that isn't how they're presented at all, we are in fact supposed to cheer for this behaviour alongside them. This is ultimately where my face began to scrunch up with disgust. Honestly, the funniest thing about the film to me was the assumption that it was about Chinese women going to China and integrating with the culture, to which obviously a film like this would be rejected and banned within China for its themes. I think even Turning Red handled this more Asian cultural narrative oriented around growing up and self-discovery with more thought and respect for it all.
If you have ever seen a Seth Rogen film, I'd say this is what it feels like. Which is funny to say, because just now I looked up the credits to see Seth Rogen listed as a producer; to which he also worked on the aforementioned Sausage Party title. Well, honestly, I don't think I have anything more I want to say about this film. Its comedy is horrible and relies on the utmost vulgarity thrown into your face every few seconds, with a story that just doesn't really make sense beyond that. Every character is insufferable, with nothing they really explore or learn about despite the film's introduction. Avoid it, watch something better.
