First Take: Joy Ride - The Hangover meets Girls Trip with some extra Rogen spice

SYNOPSIS: Follows four Chinese-American friends as they bond and discover the truth of what it means to know and love who you are, while they travel through China in search of one of their birth mothers.

Sometimes cinema chains like to surprise people from time to time with mystery screenings of upcoming films, and at the minute, basically everyone seems to be jumping on board the old Screen Unseen train - so last night, Vue, Odeon and Cineworld customers were treated to this new Seth Rogen produced comedy. And it seems to have played very strongly across the board, even in a relatively empty screen 3.

I think the reason Joy Ride went down as brilliantly as it did was due to a combination of a good script and good direction - this is Adele Lim’s directorial debut, and she does a cracking job turning around a 1 hour 35 minute comedy that is all killer and no filler, even if some of the editing leaves a bit to be desired in terms of moving from one plot point to another. She also had a big hand in the story, with Family Guy writer Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao finishing a really well thought out script that passes the 6 laugh test very easily, and this is before we mention how crazy the humour gets within this proud 15 certificate film. Paul Yee’s cinematography does the job, as does Nathan Matthew David’s score, and that ultimately allows the cast to excel in this very authentic film that happens to have comedy as a key bit.

And that cast is lead brilliantly by Ashley Park, with Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu making a group who are able to sell this story - even as contrived as it gets - incredibly well, and make it very believable. Supporting this cast is Ronny Cheng, Desmond Chiam, Daniel Dae Kim and many others, and considering the release slate in the UK when it officially opens next month, it will run unopposed within the comedy genre to allow what could be a surprise success to happen - it opened strong in the States this weekend, and based on the reactions from cinemas who screened it last night, everything looks very encouraging for distributors Lionsgate.

THE VERDICT

Joy Ride has plenty of laughs, a lot of emotion, and an air of authenticity to it that not many studio comedies have these days - and even with the gross out humour you would expect from a film that Seth Rogen has been involved with, it still feels like a big breath of fresh air. This is one definitely suited for a night out with mates at the local cinema - and a nice way to cap off a marathon 4 film review session too.

RATING: 4/5