I have not seen the movie Purple Rain in years, which is odd because it was one of the first movies my wife bought when we first got a DVD player, as this was one a favorite movie of hers back in the 80's. This was a movie that I enjoyed at the time as well.

For those of you much younger than I Purple Rain stared Prince, for those even younger, Prince was a huge pop sensation in the late 80’s.

In Purple Rain Prince stars a musician with great promise who works for a nightclub, he is known in the movie as simply The Kid. The kid still lives with his parents who have a complicated relationship to put it mildly. His relationship with his parents and their relationship with each other has him in a bit of turmoil.

The Kid also falls for a beautiful aspiring singer by the name of Aballonia. However since The Kid has grown up only knowing dysfunctional relationships, he has a lot of difficulty maintaining a relationship with her.

The Kid also has trouble listening to his band members and his relationship with them is stressed as well.

In his work life he is a rather popular musician in the night club, but because of his stressed relationship with both Aballonia and his parents he seems to be losing his touch and his band is suffering for it. To make things worse a Rival group is dying to get at his spot (Morris Day and the Time). It looks like rival group just might do it too.

The Kid must now get out from under everything that is pulling him down and get his act back together, and heal his relationship with Aballonia back on track.

Purple Rain is thin in both plot and dialogue. Prince actually does a lot more brooding than he does speaking, and most of the non musical scenes are either angry, pouty or a love scene. The key to the movie however is the music. Purple Rain turned out some of the best songs of the decade.

Purple Rain turned out songs such as the title track Purple Rain for instance, along with Little Nicky a song which was meant to be offensive and purposely rude in the movie but really caught on with Prince Fans. Another song that was very popular from the movie was Let’s Get Crazy.

Prince’s music was not the only music made popular by the film; Morris Day and the Time’s band churned out the popular club song, The Bird. Aballonia Six which performed the song Sex Shooter while wearing skimpy lingerie.

There is actually so little dialogue and the plot is so simple that it is hard to write about the film. The film is gratefully about 80% music. Because of the great music though and a few witty lines thrown in here and there the movie works, or at least it worked in the 80’s. After just watching it again I have to say that I still enjoyed it, but that could possibly be for sentimental reason, those under 35 years of age might not enjoy the movie so much, and if you don’t enjoy the music in this movie you will not enjoy the movie at all.

As for the acting, it is really not all that great. Prince did an OK job for a non actor and many of the actors in the movie very obviously were not experienced actors, but since the movie was not in need of a lot of acting outside of a few scenes, this was OK.

Fortunately though this movie is mostly about a performer, and luckily most of the movie has him performing musically and not acting.

Outside of the performing and the singing there is a couple of good love scenes and a couple of lines in the movie that area actually quite funny.

For those that like Prince and enjoy his music Purple Rain is a good movie despite the amateur acting, simple plot, and little very little actual speaking parts. If you don’t like Prince and do not like his older music, well then I am afraid there is really not much here for you.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older