Purple Rain (1984) * *

Directed by: Albert Magnoli

Starring: Prince, Morris Day, Appollonia.


This movie was first released in 1984 and I saw it in the theater. I enjoyed it then, but sometimes movies just flat out don't hold up. This is one of them. Is it terrible? No, but it's not really all that compelling and Prince is a lot less interesting than I thought back then. Some of the songs are very good, but I'll save that for later in the review.

The movie has a semi-autobiographical feel to it as Prince's character, The Kid, struggles with daily life as a Minneapolis club musician. His band is revolting against him. He lives in the basement of his parents' house, where his dad abuses his mom almost daily. The club owner where he works thinks his songs have gone south in quality. (The fact that Prince's Darling Nikki is being performed while the owner shakes his head in disgust is proof enough that this is true).

Oh, and there's Morris Day, leader of a rival band The Time, who has no qualms about trying to steal The Kid's new girlfriend, Appollonia, played by, well Appollonia. Why is it that Morris Day plays Morris Day, Appollonia plays Appollonia, yet Prince plays The Kid? Other than Morris Day, no one in this movie seems to have a last name either. Kid's abusive dad is referred to as Francis L.

As if The Kid didn't have enough to put up with, the club owner threatens his job by saying, "No one digs your music but yourself. If you don't kick ass tomorrow night, you're out." By my recollection, this isn't exactly fair.  The Time performs only two songs in the whole movie and are on stage for all of two minutes of screen time.   Appollonia's fledgling group appears only once.  Dez Dickerson, a former real-life Prince band member, sings a song in the beginning and is never seen again.   Yet, The Kid, who plays every night, is the odd-man out.   He should at least complain that the other acts are slackers.  

But Prince hardly inspires sympathy. He has a scowl on his face for much of the movie. Why Appollonia would have any interest in him is beyond me.   He has enough problems without adding a girlfriend to treat poorly, although she has some kind of kick-ass body.   The film really believes that The Kid is likable, but the opposite is true.

Many of the songs in the film are pop classics, but when performed live I'm afraid they are simply too good. The sound quality is so good that the realism of them being played in a club goes out the window. The songs sound like they're being lip-synched from a soundtrack. And when Purple Rain is performed, The Kid bolts the scene and paces backstage, thinking the crowd hated the song. As this is going on, the strings which make up the end of the song are heard, as if the band is really playing them. But there are no violins present, so who's playing them? The soundtrack obviously.

When the songs sound that good, how come these bands were still toiling in a club, albeit a huge one? Don't talent scouts make it up to Minneapolis? You would think they'd be tripping over each other to give these guys recording contracts. And what about the ending? Essentially, The Kid performs Purple Rain, I Would Die 4 U, and Baby, I'm A Star, the crowd loves it and the movie's over.   With all of the drama going on, couldn't they resolve the movie better than that?

Then again, that might be asking a lot of a movie in which The Kid doesn't have a first name, let alone a last name.