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Verdict: Great soundtrack, great Beyoncé, but a lame Cuba Gooding Jr. gets in the movie's way.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Beyoncé Knowles blows Cuba Gooding Jr. off the screen in “The Fighting Temptations,” an earnest, good-hearted movie about an underdog gospel choir hoping to win a national competition.

Gooding's performance is so wince-inducing that an Olsen twin could probably steal the movie. But Knowles does more than take a star vehicle away from the ostensible star. She proves she has the charisma, the looks, the voice and the acting ability to carry something more substantial than this or last year's delightful but lightweight “Austin Powers in Goldmember.”

Gooding plays Darrin, a slick and duplicitous junior exec at a Manhattan ad agency. Fired when he's caught in one lie too many (or a dozen lies too many), he travels to tiny Monte Carlo, Ga., for the reading of his Aunt Sally's will. She's left him a lot of dough on one condition: Darrin must create a choir, based in Monte Carlo's Beulah Baptist Church, and lead it to victory in the Gospel Explosion in Columbus, Ga.

Essentially, Gooding has traded the Siberian huskies and Alaskan malamutes of his unlikely hit “Snow Dogs” for an adorably diverse gospel choir that includes the local barbershop quartet, a trio of convicts, assorted drunks and lay-abouts, and Lilly (Knowles), a jazz singer with a sizzling voice. None of this sits well with Paulina (LaTanya Richardson), the bossy sister of the mild-mannered reverend (Wendell Pierce) and self-appointed church arbiter.

There's a lot to like in “The Fighting Temptations.” Along with Knowles and the always-good Richardson, the choral group contains some of the great voices in R&B, hip-hop, Broadway musicals and, of course, gospel: Faith Evans, Melba Moore, Montell Jordan, T-Bone, Angie Stone, Zane and the Rev. Shirley Caesar.

But even those pluses can't overcome Gooding's disappointing and vacuous performance. That best supporting actor Oscar for “Jerry Maguire” is beginning to look more and more like a fluke.