First off, you have to understand that Prince is a much better singer than he is an actor.
Second, it helps to remember that "Purple Rain," in which Prince made his screen debut in 1984, is a much better music video than it is a personal drama. Keep those two things in mind, and you may enjoy the movie better.
The story appears to be at least semiautobiographical in that it recounts the rise of brash young Minneapolis singer and his band, The Revolution, as they come up through the ranks in a nightclub called First Avenue. Prince plays the young singer, referred to only as "the Kid," as somebody too wrapped up in himself to notice the people around him, until he meets another young entertainer, Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero), with whom he falls in love. At least, he loves her as much as he loves himself. It's only when he finally sheds his ego that he becomes a success, so we find the movie contains a moral along with a ton of good music.
The opening number sets the stage, going on for about ten minutes, while bits of the plot unfold in the background. It's a rollicking sequence, joyous really, and sparkles from beginning to end.
Then the actors begin to mouth some words, and we learn what we're up against; namely, that this movie is not going to win any acting awards. Frankly, the acting is dreadful. When the Kid and Apollonia first see each other, they give one another the eye, and it's one of the most awkward moments I've seen in a major motion picture. There follow, however, moments of equal clumsiness from practically all the actors, many of the performances laughable they're so bad. The timing is off, the phrasing is ungainly, the pauses between responses are sometimes monumentally prolonged. When Prince speaks, it's as if he took thespian lessons from Sylvester Stallone, he murmurs and mumbles so much. Yet he's one of the better actors in the piece. They're all so bad, they speak as though they were reading the words for the first time, and they make one wince in pain having to listen to them deliver a line.
Fortunately, there is so much good music involved, both between bouts of melodrama and behind them, that it easily distracts one's mind from the clunky histrionics unfolding in the story line.
The main conflict in the movie, besides the inner, psychological one going on the Kid's head, involves a rival singer named Morris (Morris Day) and his band, The Time. Any similarity between these characters and real-life characters is purely not coincidental. Morris tries to steal Apollonia away from the Kid and use her in his own band, but do we care? Not really. Almost nothing the characters do or say has much motivation, much explanation involved, so plot-wise things are pretty much at a dead-end.
Yet the characters have a curious charm about them. Despite the Kid's cocky, stubborn self-pride, Prince makes him engaging and charismatic. Apollonia is hard-edged but vulnerable. And Morris is probably best of all, not for his acting, but for his self-effacing humor. He seems like the only person in the movie having a good time. He doesn't take himself or his character as seriously as Prince does, and for that reason he makes his role more memorable. Heck, he even does an Abbott-and-Costello routine that's kind of cute.
The 1980s were a time of unbounded optimism, and we see it in the film. The young people have dreams of making it big, and with perseverance and talent, they do. The fact is, the music album probably did better than the film did, as it should have because the music is quite fetching, with energy, punch, and sparkle. The climactic song, "Purple Rain," is actually rather moving.
"Purple Rain" gets an R rating for profanity, nudity, and some steamy, stylized sex.
Trivia: For reasons unknown, WB's press site lists the HD DVD as having a running time of 114 minutes, and they mark 114 minutes on the disc case. But the same press site lists the 20th Anniversary Special Edition (SD) at 111 minutes. Moreover, my Toshiba's time counter as well as the Internet Movie Database say the film's running time is 111 minutes. I'd go with 111.
Second, it helps to remember that "Purple Rain," in which Prince made his screen debut in 1984, is a much better music video than it is a personal drama. Keep those two things in mind, and you may enjoy the movie better.
The story appears to be at least semiautobiographical in that it recounts the rise of brash young Minneapolis singer and his band, The Revolution, as they come up through the ranks in a nightclub called First Avenue. Prince plays the young singer, referred to only as "the Kid," as somebody too wrapped up in himself to notice the people around him, until he meets another young entertainer, Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero), with whom he falls in love. At least, he loves her as much as he loves himself. It's only when he finally sheds his ego that he becomes a success, so we find the movie contains a moral along with a ton of good music.
The opening number sets the stage, going on for about ten minutes, while bits of the plot unfold in the background. It's a rollicking sequence, joyous really, and sparkles from beginning to end.
Then the actors begin to mouth some words, and we learn what we're up against; namely, that this movie is not going to win any acting awards. Frankly, the acting is dreadful. When the Kid and Apollonia first see each other, they give one another the eye, and it's one of the most awkward moments I've seen in a major motion picture. There follow, however, moments of equal clumsiness from practically all the actors, many of the performances laughable they're so bad. The timing is off, the phrasing is ungainly, the pauses between responses are sometimes monumentally prolonged. When Prince speaks, it's as if he took thespian lessons from Sylvester Stallone, he murmurs and mumbles so much. Yet he's one of the better actors in the piece. They're all so bad, they speak as though they were reading the words for the first time, and they make one wince in pain having to listen to them deliver a line.
Fortunately, there is so much good music involved, both between bouts of melodrama and behind them, that it easily distracts one's mind from the clunky histrionics unfolding in the story line.
The main conflict in the movie, besides the inner, psychological one going on the Kid's head, involves a rival singer named Morris (Morris Day) and his band, The Time. Any similarity between these characters and real-life characters is purely not coincidental. Morris tries to steal Apollonia away from the Kid and use her in his own band, but do we care? Not really. Almost nothing the characters do or say has much motivation, much explanation involved, so plot-wise things are pretty much at a dead-end.
Yet the characters have a curious charm about them. Despite the Kid's cocky, stubborn self-pride, Prince makes him engaging and charismatic. Apollonia is hard-edged but vulnerable. And Morris is probably best of all, not for his acting, but for his self-effacing humor. He seems like the only person in the movie having a good time. He doesn't take himself or his character as seriously as Prince does, and for that reason he makes his role more memorable. Heck, he even does an Abbott-and-Costello routine that's kind of cute.
The 1980s were a time of unbounded optimism, and we see it in the film. The young people have dreams of making it big, and with perseverance and talent, they do. The fact is, the music album probably did better than the film did, as it should have because the music is quite fetching, with energy, punch, and sparkle. The climactic song, "Purple Rain," is actually rather moving.
"Purple Rain" gets an R rating for profanity, nudity, and some steamy, stylized sex.
Trivia: For reasons unknown, WB's press site lists the HD DVD as having a running time of 114 minutes, and they mark 114 minutes on the disc case. But the same press site lists the 20th Anniversary Special Edition (SD) at 111 minutes. Moreover, my Toshiba's time counter as well as the Internet Movie Database say the film's running time is 111 minutes. I'd go with 111.
First off, you have to understand that Prince is a much better singer than he is an actor.
Second, it helps to remember that "Purple Rain," in which Prince made his screen debut in 1984, is a much better music video than it is a personal drama. Keep those two things in mind, and you may enjoy the movie better.
The story appears to be at least semiautobiographical in that it recounts the rise of brash young Minneapolis singer and his band, The Revolution, as they come up through the ranks in a nightclub called First Avenue. Prince plays the young singer, referred to only as "the Kid," as somebody too wrapped up in himself to notice the people around him, until he meets another young entertainer, Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero), with whom he falls in love. At least, he loves her as much as he loves himself. It's only when he finally sheds his ego that he becomes a success, so we find the movie contains a moral along with a ton of good music.
The opening number sets the stage, going on for about ten minutes, while bits of the plot unfold in the background. It's a rollicking sequence, joyous really, and sparkles from beginning to end.
Then the actors begin to mouth some words, and we learn what we're up against; namely, that this movie is not going to win any acting awards. Frankly, the acting is dreadful. When the Kid and Apollonia first see each other, they give one another the eye, and it's one of the most awkward moments I've seen in a major motion picture. There follow, however, moments of equal clumsiness from practically all the actors, many of the performances laughable they're so bad. The timing is off, the phrasing is ungainly, the pauses between responses are sometimes monumentally prolonged. When Prince speaks, it's as if he took thespian lessons from Sylvester Stallone, he murmurs and mumbles so much. Yet he's one of the better actors in the piece. They're all so bad, they speak as though they were reading the words for the first time, and they make one wince in pain having to listen to them deliver a line.
Fortunately, there is so much good music involved, both between bouts of melodrama and behind them, that it easily distracts one's mind from the clunky histrionics unfolding in the story line.
The main conflict in the movie, besides the inner, psychological one going on the Kid's head, involves a rival singer named Morris (Morris Day) and his band, The Time. Any similarity between these characters and real-life characters is purely not coincidental. Morris tries to steal Apollonia away from the Kid and use her in his own band, but do we care? Not really. Almost nothing the characters do or say has much motivation, much explanation involved, so plot-wise things are pretty much at a dead-end.
Yet the characters have a curious charm about them. Despite the Kid's cocky, stubborn self-pride, Prince makes him engaging and charismatic. Apollonia is hard-edged but vulnerable. And Morris is probably best of all, not for his acting, but for his self-effacing humor. He seems like the only person in the movie having a good time. He doesn't take himself or his character as seriously as Prince does, and for that reason he makes his role more memorable. Heck, he even does an Abbott-and-Costello routine that's kind of cute.
The 1980s were a time of unbounded optimism, and we see it in the film. The young people have dreams of making it big, and with perseverance and talent, they do. The fact is, the music album probably did better than the film did, as it should have because the music is quite fetching, with energy, punch, and sparkle. The climactic song, "Purple Rain," is actually rather moving.
"Purple Rain" gets an R rating for profanity, nudity, and some steamy, stylized sex.
Trivia: For reasons unknown, WB's press site lists the HD DVD as having a running time of 114 minutes, and they mark 114 minutes on the disc case. But the same press site lists the 20th Anniversary Special Edition (SD) at 111 minutes. Moreover, my Toshiba's time counter as well as the Internet Movie Database say the film's running time is 111 minutes. I'd go with 111.
Second, it helps to remember that "Purple Rain," in which Prince made his screen debut in 1984, is a much better music video than it is a personal drama. Keep those two things in mind, and you may enjoy the movie better.
The story appears to be at least semiautobiographical in that it recounts the rise of brash young Minneapolis singer and his band, The Revolution, as they come up through the ranks in a nightclub called First Avenue. Prince plays the young singer, referred to only as "the Kid," as somebody too wrapped up in himself to notice the people around him, until he meets another young entertainer, Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero), with whom he falls in love. At least, he loves her as much as he loves himself. It's only when he finally sheds his ego that he becomes a success, so we find the movie contains a moral along with a ton of good music.
The opening number sets the stage, going on for about ten minutes, while bits of the plot unfold in the background. It's a rollicking sequence, joyous really, and sparkles from beginning to end.
Then the actors begin to mouth some words, and we learn what we're up against; namely, that this movie is not going to win any acting awards. Frankly, the acting is dreadful. When the Kid and Apollonia first see each other, they give one another the eye, and it's one of the most awkward moments I've seen in a major motion picture. There follow, however, moments of equal clumsiness from practically all the actors, many of the performances laughable they're so bad. The timing is off, the phrasing is ungainly, the pauses between responses are sometimes monumentally prolonged. When Prince speaks, it's as if he took thespian lessons from Sylvester Stallone, he murmurs and mumbles so much. Yet he's one of the better actors in the piece. They're all so bad, they speak as though they were reading the words for the first time, and they make one wince in pain having to listen to them deliver a line.
Fortunately, there is so much good music involved, both between bouts of melodrama and behind them, that it easily distracts one's mind from the clunky histrionics unfolding in the story line.
The main conflict in the movie, besides the inner, psychological one going on the Kid's head, involves a rival singer named Morris (Morris Day) and his band, The Time. Any similarity between these characters and real-life characters is purely not coincidental. Morris tries to steal Apollonia away from the Kid and use her in his own band, but do we care? Not really. Almost nothing the characters do or say has much motivation, much explanation involved, so plot-wise things are pretty much at a dead-end.
Yet the characters have a curious charm about them. Despite the Kid's cocky, stubborn self-pride, Prince makes him engaging and charismatic. Apollonia is hard-edged but vulnerable. And Morris is probably best of all, not for his acting, but for his self-effacing humor. He seems like the only person in the movie having a good time. He doesn't take himself or his character as seriously as Prince does, and for that reason he makes his role more memorable. Heck, he even does an Abbott-and-Costello routine that's kind of cute.
The 1980s were a time of unbounded optimism, and we see it in the film. The young people have dreams of making it big, and with perseverance and talent, they do. The fact is, the music album probably did better than the film did, as it should have because the music is quite fetching, with energy, punch, and sparkle. The climactic song, "Purple Rain," is actually rather moving.
"Purple Rain" gets an R rating for profanity, nudity, and some steamy, stylized sex.
Trivia: For reasons unknown, WB's press site lists the HD DVD as having a running time of 114 minutes, and they mark 114 minutes on the disc case. But the same press site lists the 20th Anniversary Special Edition (SD) at 111 minutes. Moreover, my Toshiba's time counter as well as the Internet Movie Database say the film's running time is 111 minutes. I'd go with 111.
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