Review of Purple Rain (1984) by Jason M — 20 Jun 2016

I watched this film recently because a friend told me it was great and that Prince was a musical genius. After watching this film, it validated what I always suspected. This was not a great film and Prince was an overrated musician.

This film is Prince. This launched his career and music. In my opinion, his career never did much else after this. Never again did he release great hits despite so many years in show business. Prince was in the 90s, 00s and 10s, much like the Rolling Stones have been after Tattoo You in the early 80s. At least the Stones had a myriad of classic hits from 1964 to 1981!

The film plot is light fare. Apollonia is teen boy wet dream fare. Prince's music is pretentious fare. His guitar playing is lightweight and overrated.

Despite not being a Prince fan, he has a tremendous amount of hit material in this film. Objectively, this is an okay watch, but not a good or great film. Predictable plot. Prince takes himself way too seriously. I assume fans bought into this. I never did. As a guitarist myself, I never had any respect for his musicianship.

The film defines the 80s Prince music genre.