Purple Rain - Review

I am a recent fan of Prince. I heard the song Purple Rain for the first time after Prince's passing in early 2016. I fell in love with the song. I bought the vinyl record and have loved it ever since. After Bruno Mars's great Prince tribute at the Grammys this year, I decided to give Prince's Purple Rain film a shot. Not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed. When Prince is on stage performing, it's great and watching the Purple Rain performance was magical. Such a great song. However, this isn't simply watching Prince in concert, there is a story here. Unfortunately, the story is fairly basic and kind of boring. I've definitely seen the "struggling artist from an abusive home" storyline before with the artist becoming his own worst enemy and all the typical things that come with a story like this. I have no problem with simple stories if they are told well, but it's hard to enjoy this story when it is bogged down by terrible acting. Prince himself is actually not that bad, but all his supporting cast cannot give a convincing performance to save their lives. His manager is so bad it's hilarious so I'll give him a pass, but his girlfriend, his father, bandmates, forget about it. They do nothing to save this movie which for the most part, is just pretty boring. Sidenote, I love 80's music, but this movie really shows off the crazy side of the decade. Overall, I cannot recommend this movie unless you are the biggest Prince fan in the world. Even still, I'd say just stick with music videos.