Easter Sunday Review (2022) – A boring, tortuous, all around drag of a movie that barely had anything to do with Easter!

His face in this movie poster…was our faces while we watched the movie. That’s kind of fun!

Blessed Ostara! Happy spring equinox! Happy Easter! Whatever you prefer to call the spring holiday and whatever you personally celebrate this month, we potatoes are here for it and we wish you an awesome holiday or holidays!

To celebrate the holiday we decided to watch a movie that we had not seen before: “Easter Sunday” starring Jo Koy. We love Jo Koy so we had high hopes for this movie…unfortunately for us, the movie did not live up to our hopes at all.

We still love Jo Koy, and highly recommend his standup…but not this movie. It was, simply put, disappointing and was yet another movie…that we felt was made a lot more bearable because of the drinking game we came up with. We highly endorse playing it if you are going to watch this movie, as this movie was pretty painful to get through.

We will do everything we can to not give too many spoilers in this review but there are likely to be some, so please take that into consideration and read cautiously.

The film begins with Joe Valencia, (Jo Koy), doing standup at a club. Already off to a cheesy start, but he is a funny comedian! The film shows us a few other places that he is doing comedy at. Implying that he is doing a comedy tour.

Cut to L.A. and we see him with his son Junior (Brandon Wardell) going to a burrito place to pick up some food. They share some cringe worthy banter and we get the understanding that Joe is not a very hands on father.

This is the only scene throughout the entire movie where we actually see that it is Easter time. There are some bunny ears, and Easter decorations around as well as someone that Joe knows dressed up in an Easter bunny costume. We could easily forgive this oversight if the film was actually well acted, well written and funny…or even at least interesting. It was none of those things!

He briefly discusses his career as a stand-up comedian as well as a commercial he did for a beer company that has somehow made him a small celebrity? It was weird but a lot of people recognized him from his commercial throughout the film.

He then does a random dance with the Easter Bunny because…they used to dance together. We see him next at his callback for an acting role for a sitcom.

He is practicing his lines, but the callback is running behind! He promised his son that he would be there for a parent teacher conference. Joe nervously looks at the clock, but he gets his chance to say his lines.

It seems to be going “well”, but of course his phone is blowing up because he is late to the conference. He ignores his phone and gets some feedback from one of the people working on the sitcom.

They ask him to try to do the reading with an accent. Joe does not understand at first, but quickly gets it when she says “hey, you’re half Filipino right?”

Upset he leaves the callback and tries to rush to his son’s school!

His ex-wife Catherine, (Carly Pope), calls him upset, but he brushes her off to talk to his agent, (Jay Chandrasekhar). His agent is probably one of the only actually funny parts of this film. Joe is talking to his agent and every single time he talks to his agent throughout the whole film, his agent hangs up on him.

It actually is a little funny. His agent comes up with some lie or excuse and hangs up on him. We did laugh a little at that!

After his talk with his agent, his mom (Lydia Gaston) calls. If you know Jo Koy’s standup, you know that his mom is an interesting woman! She even calls him “Josep”. If you know, you know!

She talks to him about Easter Sunday and how she is expecting him to be there. He manages to get off the phone quickly and lets out an exasperated sigh. He gets to the school, where he has, of course, missed everything.

His son is frustrated with him…but the writing and acting is not very believable. While Joe is talking to Junior in front of the school Joe’s mom calls again! She calls simply to guilt trip him about Easter Sunday. She wants Joe and Junior there! They agree to go.

His agent calls him again trying to convince him to do an accent for the show. Joe says “no” and his agent once again pretends to have a problem with the call and hangs up.

He wraps things up at the school with his ex-wife and son and we cut to a T.V. in Joe’s home playing his super cringe commercial. “Let’s get the party started, baby!”

While he is grabbing a beer his mom calls him…yet again. This is all the same day by the way. She calls to guilt him AGAIN about Easter even though he already said that he would be going and bringing Junior.

We cut to the next morning, which we are assuming is Easter morning. He is at his ex’s house to pick up Junior and we meet his ex’s husband Kyle (Michael Weaver). This guy is incredibly…odd. He does not seem to have much of a sense for personal boundaries. He slaps Joe on the ass and is over the top.

Kyle is blatantly rude to Joe, and is all around an uncomfortable guy to be around. The scene is made even more awkward because of the poor acting and writing. The whole movie is extremely awkward because of how badly done it is. There is very little immersion when watching this.

Joe and Junior manage to make it to the car to drive all the way from L.A. to Oakland! We will admit that this part of the movie was a bit nostalgic for us in regards to the setting. We potatoes grew up in the Bay Area!

The car ride is rough and weird. Again, the acting is very stilted, not very believable, and leaves you bored. We finally get to his mom’s house where we see his mom in an argument with a neighbor.

We are not sure why they did this? Is it to show just how weird his mom is? We already know. She is overbearing and that has been made clear.

Somehow they managed to get there in time to have breakfast and go to church! But not before we meet his sister, Regina (Elena Juatco), who is one of our favorite characters because she actually felt reasonably genuine.

Her acting carried the scene and then she left…and we are left with Joe and Junior staring at a creepy statue of “baby Jesus.”

We then cut to the kitchen where Mom is cooking up a large Easter dinner. Joe talks about his mom’s sister and we learn here that they are not talking. The sisters are having some kind of feud.

Cut to church, mom is wearing a brand new magenta dress that she bought to make her sister jealous? The whole thing is funky, and the acting in front of the church is just exhausting.

A weird truck pulls up called a “hype truck”. Joe gave his cousin Eugene, (Eugene Cordero) backing for a taco truck…but instead of a taco truck, Eugene has a “hype truck”. Eugene hops out of the hype truck, and explains to him that he isn’t selling tacos he is selling hype!

What is hype? Merchandise. High priced merchandise. How that would hype someone up is beyond us but Eugene is excited about it!

We move back into the church and we meet the fueding aunt, Tita Teresa (Tia Carrera) who is…*gasp* wearing the same dress as Joe’s mom!

She, “Wears it better.” Tita Teresa says. She congratulates Joe on his new T.V. show, which surprises Joe. He has not landed the role, so he asks her where she heard that and she tells him that his mom bragged about it.

“I thought you guys weren’t talking?”

She responds stiffly, “We’re not.”

He gets called away by Father Hildo, (Rodney Perry), who is mad at Joe because he did not make the Father’s music demo huge? It was a really weird interaction that did not make a lot of sense and seems like it was just put in as an attempt to be funny when it just comes across as unnecessary, confusing and annoying.

Everyone is finally seated and the Father is giving his Easter Sunday sermon. Once again we are bored. Joe starts talking to Eugene about the hype truck when the Father decides to single him out and try to manipulate and guilt him into giving a lot of money to the church.

This was probably supposed to be funny….but we did not laugh at all. We found the Father’s behavior to be weird, uncomfortable and distasteful.

Joe apologizes to Father Hildo…we felt that this was not warranted at all, sigh, but Father Hildo pushes him to come up and speak to the congregation!

Which, of course, turns into a comedy routine and where Jo Koy looks and feels the most comfortable throughout the entire film. He is a damn good comedian and he is comfortable as a comic.

His best and most believable performances within this film are when he is being a standup comedian.

So he does an Easter comedy routine. Which is heavily religious, but we did chuckle a few times. The church goers are laughing and are actually enjoying themselves now! Joe is confident, and convincing.

After we wrap up at the church we go to the Easter lunch being held by Tita Teresa at the park. Mom and Teresa are trying to get along because Joe goaded them into it during his set at the church.

While he is at the luncheon, his agent calls him and tells him that he can have the role he tried for if he will do the accent. Joe refuses and his agent hangs up on him yet again.

Joe knows that he is not going to get the role because he is not willing to do an accent. Completely understandable in every damn way. Everyone thinks he already has the role and he is not eager to correct them.

Junior is simply trying to get some food, but Mom and Teresa…well they both try to usurp each other, and get Junior to eat different things. It is yet another odd scene where the young actor that plays Junior is awkward and just runs off.

We are so sorry to say that we really need to wrap it up here. There are only so many times that we can rewatch this film and we have reached our limit! The rest of the movie is as predictable and awkward as you can expect. There is a bit of a twist though, Eugene borrowed a lot of merchandise and product from some kind of small time gangster.

This gangster shows up to the lunch, on Easter Sunday…to demand his money back because that makes sense. The rest of the film gets even more awkward and dumb as we watch Joe and Eugene try to find ways to get the money while at the same time making it back to Joe’s mom’s house for Easter Dinner!

By the way the most Easter stuff about this movie pretty much ends at the very beginning after we meet the man dressed as the Easter Bunny.

Unless of course you consider church a necessary part of it, then maybe it ends at after the church scene. But this movie does not really feel like an Easter film. Easter Sunday is simply the day that everything is taking place…it does not actually have anything to do with Easter, Ostara, spring, renewal, etc.

This movie had us feeling really sad. We wanted to love it because we really like Jo Koy. Unfortunately, it was incredibly dull, boring, badly written, badly acted, and all around a dud of a movie.

Setting aside the poor acting and directing, we need to talk about the fact that the movie has astoundingly little story to go on. We have some story beats with Joe’s attempts to get on the sitcom, some stuff with the gangster and Eugene, but for the most part, it seems like a bunch of random events occurring on any given day. Again, there really isn’t much to do with Easter here.

It’s also rough to see that Jo Koy starred in a film to play…himself…like, literally. His name is Jo in real life, he is a comedian in real life, he has a son named Jo (Junior) in real life…It just seemed like we were getting to see a day in Jo Koy’s life and to be perfectly honest, it was dull as hell.

We hate writing this! We feel so sad, frustrated, and bummed that this movie was not at all what we were hoping for. Everything and anything that is even a little funny they put into the trailer. Watch the trailer and you’ll get the best little moments of the film.

We do want to acknowledge Tiffany Haddish who had a small role in the film but actually made us laugh a little. She was one of the only funny characters in the movie but unfortunately she does not have a big enough role in the movie to save it.

Overall this was a bad movie. But we feel that directing, and poor writing may have been a big part of that. But it is hard to say! If you are curious about Jo Koy, check out his standup because he is stellar there.

If you are someone who loves cringe, awkward acting, bad writing, and boredom then this is the movie for you! Once again, if you are going to check this movie out for yourself, we could not recommend the drinking game more!

We give this movie...1 shot of Everclear out of 5!

Easter Sunday Drinking Game

Take a sip anytime:

1.     Anyone says Easter

2.     There's family drama

3.     Anyone does or says something embarrassing

4.     Joe mentions his mom

5.     Mom calls Joe "Josep"

6.     Joe is awkward with his son

7.     Joe does stand up

8.     Joe talks to his agent

9.     Joe talks about accents

10.  Joe's agent hangs up on him

11.  Junior is awkward

12.  We see a Jesus on screen (statues, stained glass, etc.)

13.  Anything feels awkward

14.  Anytime you cringe

15.  Anyone mentions "family is the most important thing"

16. Anyone mentions Manny Pacquiao

What did you think?? Did you like the movie? Did you hate it!? Do you have suggestions for films we should consider?! Let us know here in the comments and always remember to be safe and drink responsibly!