Man I used to love watching Nickelodeon when their cartoons, live action sitcoms, and movies had actual heart and soul put into them. It's no surprise that this film didn't do well after their serious decline over the past decade. The J Team is basically JoJo Siwa: The Movie, if you don't know who JoJo Siwa is, she's a young and extremely popular singer, songwriter, dancer, actress, and social influencer (atleast back when she was a kid). She's been the Minnie Mouse of Nickelodeon since 2017 and was popular to a much younger audience.

I personally don't have any hate towards JoJo Siwa like a lot of people, not that I'm a fan of her work since I'm simply not the targeted demographic. This doesn't excuse how bottom tier this movie is though. This might even be the worst Nickelodeon film ever produced. The story is about JoJo Siwa getting kicked off her dance team because of a new bossy coach taking over who doesn't approve of her saturated appearance and joyful personality, meanwhile JoJo and her new dance team create "The J Team" to compete against her.

I mean this premise actually sounds passable on paper, but the movie executes it horribly as a "being accepted for who you are" type of film even to kids. It's not only painfully unrealistic and extremely predictable but the movie literally forgets this storyline even exists at times and just shoves musical number after musical numbers into your ears. This is nothing new with musical movies but the message goes nowhere after the first few songs get thrown into your face. This isn't a "Nick Jr." movie like Paw Patrol: The Movie so it can't be excused for a movie made just for preschoolers. It's poorly paced in every way and gets super boring to watch in just minutes and not much really happens aside from JoJo singing about getting herself back on stage over and over, there's no substance or character development throughout the entire film.

Speaking of character development, this movie has some of the worst characters I've seen from a Nickelodeon project. JoJo Siwa does almost nothing other than what I already mentioned, her goal is barely played out like a drama and more like an easy outgoing mission that could've been solved in 15 minutes getting back into dancing on stage with a new team of companions. There's nothing relatable or sympathetic about how she's portrayed in this film like it would be in real life in the music industry. She barely shows any concern and proper emotion because of how one-dimensional her personality is written for this film. The bad acting doesn't make it any better due to how forced the directing feels. Coach Poppy fails as a villain because of how bland her character is for an antagonist. The only reason she kicks JoJo out of the dance studio is because she stereotypes her for her bow and energetic style. Her brief backstory fails to make her an understandable antagonist and more of just an underwhelming plot device who hates happy people for no reason. JoJo's dance friends are also complete jerks to her thinking she betrayed them when getting a new team and her new team is no better, none of the other characters have a personality as they are just annoying cardboard cutouts. It's mean-spirited when JoJo has done nothing wrong for the sake of trying to bring back her happiness without hurting others and not one person gets it in their head. JoJo's dog BowBow only gets a minor role and only appears in two unnecessary musical numbers. You'd think maybe Jessalyn and Jayden Siwa would get an appearance in this film but oh well.

If that wasn't bad enough the songs in this movie feel very rushed and uninspired and only exist because it's a JoJo Siwa movie. There's no creativity put into the musical aspect of this film and only feels like a cash cow to sell Siwa merch. The film literally starts with an unnecessary opening song when JoJo wakes up and doesn't contribute to the introduction of her character or even the actual plot, it could've just been a normal slice-of-life introduction for the few who don't even know who JoJo Siwa is and just wanted to watch a new Nickelodeon film that came out on Paramount+. If the soundtrack was the only reason Nickelodeon allowed this movie then it should've just been a live musical.

Additionally this movie feels extremely TV quality with how it's filmed and edited, I don't know if a theatrical release was originally intended or not but this looks very low budget for Nickelodeon standards. This might sound like a nitpick but visually this just feels like it was shot in 10 days, the only time the visual effects look somewhat finished would be the final dance scenes at the concert between JoJo and Poppy. I've seen better cinematography even from bad Nickelodeon movies.

This movie is just a sad waste of time. Again I do not hate JoJo Siwa but this might honestly be the worst Nickelodeon movie to date. The same studio that brought tears to our eyes from the emotional scene in the SpongeBob Movie gave us this unwatchable lifeless cashgrab. This is all just my opinion and I know it's nothing new to see Nickelodeon make these kind of things, it's just sad to see wasted potential in what Nickelodeon could be doing in this day of age. They just milk everything they get their hands on that makes them the most money.

Yes it's formulaic, and yes you can probably predict the ending within the first half hour of the movie. But it's cute and really is it such a bad thing to have multiple movies telling kids it's a good thing to be unique. The songs are pretty good actually and the dancing is really well choreographed. It's not winning any awards but if you want to watch a lighthearted movie that you don't have to think too hard about the plot of it's good for that.