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Purple Rain (1984)



My daughter and I went to see Birthday Massacre at First Avenue a few months ago, and I've wanted to re-watch Purple Rain ever since, just to see what First Avenue looked like in the 1980s. At the same time, I was afraid that I wouldn't like this movie any more than I did 40 years ago, which is probably the last time I watched this film, as far as I remember. It's possible that I watched it once since 1985, but I don't think so.

This is definitely the first time I've watched this movie since living in Minnesota -- now going on 20 years. I kind of wondered if it would hit me differently for that reason, too. It didn't. It's still just a really bad, underwhelming movie.

Prince has undeniable charisma, and his music is good. But in this film, there's no coherent story, and the acting, including Prince's, is pretty atrocious for the most part.

I don't want to go through how bad it is point by point but let me just say that the movie ends with a lot of loose ends. I'm guessing that "The Kid" (Prince) is worried about turning into his father. And we're supposed to see some real growth from him at the end. He plays one of Wendy and Lisa's songs, for example. He's stacked and arranged his father's music. Is he going to visit him in the hospital? Is he going to make his Dad proud of him?

In the final show, the crowd can sense a change. A crowd that wasn't into their music for the entire movie comes to rapt attention, and they are eating out of Prince's hand by the end. Instead of letting him leave the stage after one song, they force him to play a full concert. And then he shoots his "guitar" all over them. I mean, seriously, what's up with that?

For a movie shot in Minneapolis, I was actually surprised how little of Minneapolis the movie actually shows. We get the First Avenue venue and the street in front of Prince's house, but any time he's riding his bike, it's along railroad tracks and down random country roads. That's kind of weird.

I'm not a fan of the abusive storyline. Is Apollonia Kotero gonna put up with the abuse? Why should she? And how much money does she have left? At the beginning of the film, she had like $100 to her name. She dresses well, and she's always in perfect make-up. None of that could be cheap, but we only see her perform once on stage. So, she's not a "successful singer," and she has to be just as worried about money as she was at the beginning of the film, if not more so.

It bothers me that we never learn just exactly what happens to the relationship or the band's future. Why should this last performance even mean anything to Prince's band, when just before they were being threatened with being booted out of the First Avenue rotation?

Like my wife said when we finished watching, this movie is pretty bad and it's not worth overthinking it. The story could have been a lot better. 1 star as a movie, and 2 stars just because it's Prince and it has some good concert footage.

Rating: 2/5 stars
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