Purple Rain

Purple Rain (1984)

Genres - Drama, Romance, Music, Musical  |   Sub-Genres - Rock Musical  |   Release Date - Jul 27, 1984 (USA)  |   Run Time - 111 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Review by Robert Firsching

What doesn't matter about this semi-autobiographical musical drama is that it is pretentious, misogynistic, ludicrous, and dumb. What does matter is that it is very entertaining and features an absolutely terrific musical score, one of the few to cop both an Oscar and a Grammy. Prince is the star and performs most of the songs, but the film's highlight is a delightful comic performance by Morris Day (whose group, The Time, does "Jungle Love" and "The Bird") as Prince's rival. Day steals every scene in which he appears with a cackling, tongue-in-cheek hubris that is a perfect antidote to Prince's pompous self-importance. Basically a fast-moving, carefully crafted music video, Purple Rain is fun despite its flaws.