Prince

‘Purple Rain’ Movie and 4K Review

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

The following review was written by Ultimate Rabbit correspondent, Tony Farinella.

When it comes to Prince’s music, I’m a fan, but I wouldn’t say I listen to his albums religiously.  I respect his contributions to the music industry, and I can certainly appreciate and admire the amount of effort and passion that goes into his performances.  He gives it his all when he’s on stage. Because of this, I was curious to see “Purple Rain” for the first time, especially since it was getting a 40th anniversary 4K release.  I love movies about music, so I thought it would be a film that resonated with me as a movie and music fan. I went into “Purple Rain” with high hopes, and I thought it would be a film that would make a powerful impression on me as a first-time viewer.  Even though I’ve seen a lot of movies, there are always a number of them which have slipped through the cracks throughout the years.

Prince stars as The Kid, a front man for a band called The Revolution, and he has a lot of talent, energy and love which shines through in every performance. However, he’s not exactly happy with his life. When he comes home, he sees his father constantly abusing his mother, so his one outlet for his anger and frustration is music.  When he’s on that stage, he bares his soul to the audience. His performances take place at the First Avenue Night Club. The other two acts that perform there are The Time, led by Morris Day, and also Dez Dickerson and his band The Modernaires. It’s a competition every night to see which band can leave the biggest impression on the audience.

In addition to his problems at home, two members of his band, Wendy and Lisa, played by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, are not happy with The Kid, as they feel as though their contributions to The Revolution are not being taken seriously.  It is all about The Kid and his vision. There is also a new female musician who has come into First Avenue from New Orleans named Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero) who catches the eye of The Kid.  He is falling hard and fast for her, but he wonders if he can maintain a relationship with her because of his troubled life at home. Will the sins of the father soon become his own sins as well? Apollonia is also getting offers to start an all-girl band from Morris.

“Purple Rain,” sad to say, was a big dud for me. The songs and the music are great in.  From “Purple Rain” to “When Doves Cry” to “Let’s Go Crazy”, the film has some fantastic musical numbers in it, and they really come to life on screen.  When the movie isn’t on stage, however, it suffers in a big way.  The characters are written with very little thought behind them.  The Kid wants to play music and be successful.  His father is a wifebeater. His mother just seems to be there to get beaten up by the father. Apollonia is just there to be an object of desire.  All of this feels very self-serving for Prince. Yes, it is his movie, but there is little to no story here and the plot is paper thin.

For a movie that is almost two-hours long, the music can only sustain the viewer for so long, especially if we don’t care about the people that are on stage performing the music.  When there is a dramatic moment near the end of the film with The Kid’s father, why should we care?  Yes, his performance of “Purple Rain” is powerful and the song is fantastic, but everything leading up to that moment has shown him to be a no-good woman abusing jerk who is selfish.  Purple Rain really needed to get into the nuts and bolts of this character’s mindset in order for us to fully invest ourselves in his story arc. As an actor, Prince is rather lifeless and bland on screen as well.  He’s not a good actor. If they wanted to just make this a Prince concert film, it might have worked. As a narrative film, there is a lot to be desired here.

With “Purple Rain,” I kept waiting for the musical scenes to return as the scenes outside of First Avenue were incredibly run-of-the-mill.  This film needed more balance.  They needed to make The Kid’s life outside of First Avenue a lot more complex and well-written. This way, when he performs on stage, the impact is felt in a more powerful way by the viewer.  I’m not being a contrarian here, but I really don’t understand why this film is so popular.  If I want to listen to Prince’s music, I can listen to it whenever I want to on my iPhone.  I watched “Purple Rain” for an interesting story that would be enhanced by the music.  The story didn’t need to be great or out of this world.  It just needed to have a little more meat on the bones.  All of the attention went to the musical numbers, and the acting scenes are simply there to fill up the movie.  “Purple Rain” left me feeling very underwhelmed.

* ½ out of * * * *

4K Info: “Purple Rain” is released on a single-disc 4K from Warner Brothers Home Entertainment in honor of its 40th anniversary.  The film has a running time of 111 minutes and is rated R for sexuality, some nudity, language, and some violent content.  It comes with a digital copy of the film as well.

Video Info:  For a 40-year-old film, I thought “Purple Rain” looked good but not great on 4K.  It would have definitely been enhanced by a Dolby Vision transfer.  I was hoping they would have gone that way with this release.  As it is, it’s still a solid 4K transfer.  I haven’t seen the film on Blu-ray, but I didn’t notice anything wrong with this transfer.  I also didn’t notice anything that really stood out either.

Audio Info:  For a movie that relies heavily on music, it is of the utmost importance to have good sound on this 4K release.  I’m glad to report they were up to the task with the audio here.  It’s crystal clear and all of the music has a punch to it without being too loud or aggressive. Subtitles are included in English and Spanish.

Special Features:

Commentary by director Albert Magnoli, producer Robert Cavallo and cinematographer Donald E. Thorin

First Avenue: The Road to Pop Royalty – featurette

Let’s Go Crazy – music video

Take Me with U – music video

When Doves Cry – Music Video

I Would Die 4 U/Baby I’m a Star – music video

Purple Rain – music video

Jungle Love – music video

The Bird – music video

Sex Shooter – music video

Should You Buy It?

If you are a diehard Prince fan and you love his music and this movie, this is a no-brainer here.  You will be very happy with “Purple Rain” on 4K.  They also imported the special features from the prior Blu-ray release onto this one as well. The music sounds great with this 4K release, and it is a solid visual offering from Warner Brothers as well. If you are watching this for the first-time and are only a casual fan of Prince, I don’t think there is much of a movie here.  I tolerated the first 90 minutes, and it was tough to sit through as it plods along with no character development whatsoever.  The characters are one-note and thinly-written. “Purple Rain” was really tedious and laborious to sit through, and I expected more from a movie that was so critically acclaimed and well-received.  This one is for diehard Prince fans only. If you are one of them, you will love this flick. For everyone else, you can pass on checking this out, as there’s nothing groundbreaking or out of this world here.

 **Disclaimer** I received a copy of this film from Warner Brothers to review for free.  The opinions and statements in the review are mine and mine alone.

‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ Suffers from Overkill, But it’s Still Worth a Look

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

Kingsman The Golden Circle poster

Ever since his directorial debut with “Layer Cake,” filmmaker Matthew Vaughn has done an excellent job of reinvigorating different movie genres to great effect. His “Kick-Ass” was the comic book movie many were too afraid to make, and I like to think it paved the way for “Deadpool.” He brought the “X-Men” franchise back to vibrant life with the prequel “X-Men: First Class,” and it was a prequel which put so many others like it to shame. And then he gave us “Kingsman: The Secret Service” which turned the world of spy movies upside down. In a time where James Bond, Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” movies and the Jason Bourne franchise ruled the spy genre with an iron fist, Vaughn made “Kingsman” stand out amongst the competition to where it felt fresh and unique as it was filled with invigorating action sequences and characters who were wonderfully realized and as suave as 007 is without being anywhere as cold.

While Vaughn skipped out of doing follow-ups to “X-Men: First Class” and “Kick-Ass,” it was very re-assuring to see him come back to co-write and direct “Kingsman: The Golden Circle.” Now that all the origin stuff is out of the way, we can now watch Eggsy Unwin/a.k.a. Galahad (Taron Egerton) battle the enemies of the world in a beautifully tailored suit without having to prove to us he is worthy of the status he has attained.

Indeed, Vaughn refuses to keep us waiting as “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” opens with a gangbusters action sequence in which Eggsy fights former Kingsman trainee Charlie (Edward Holcroft) in the back of a taxi as it hurtles through the streets of London while Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” blasts away on the speakers. It’s a lively introduction to a movie as Vaughn looks to be holding nothing back, and it made me eager to see if he could top what came before.

But just as Eggsy looks to be settling down with the beautiful Princess Tilde (Hanna Alstrom), a sudden attack completely decimates the Kingsman suit shop and its headquarters to where he and his trainer and die-hard John Denver fan Merlin (Mark Strong) are desperate to defeat the nemesis who laid waste to their well-dressed intelligence community. They eventually discover their chief antagonist is the notorious criminal mastermind Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore) who looks to gain worldwide stardom as a drug dealer, and this leads them to join up with their American counterpart, the Statesman, in an effort to exact revenge.

At this point, I should say while “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” proved to be a fun time at the movies for me, it does have flaws impossible to ignore. With a running time of over two hours, I couldn’t help but think a lot of fat could have been trimmed as this sequel feels overstuffed with characters Vaughn can’t give enough attention to as he tries, perhaps too hard, to subvert our expectations as this movie heads towards its unsurprisingly violent climax. Also, while the original was full of anarchic energy, this one settles into a rhythm which might seem more conventional than “Kingsman” fans may care for.

Still, I had a giddy time with this sequel, and one of the main joys I got from it was the casting of Julianne Moore as she gives us one of the most lovely and appealing sociopaths I have ever seen in a movie. Her character of Poppy Adams is the world’s biggest drug dealer, but she suffers from homesickness while hiding away in the undiscovered ruins of Southeast Asia. Poppy ends up curing her homesickness by making her hideout into a 1950’s theme park which evokes memories of “American Graffiti” and the classic television show “Happy Days.” I kept waiting for The Fonz to show up, but Poppy ends up entertaining herself with a certain musician who should remain nameless before you watch this sequel.

Moore is clearly having a great time co-starring in this “Kingsman” movie as she makes Poppy into a villain who is as delightful as she is devious. Even as she entertains prospective applicants wishing to join her evil empire, it doesn’t take much for her to show an ever so subtle psychosis with those who have failed her as they meet a fate as grisly as the one who got put into a wood chipper in the movie “Fargo.” Even as her actions show her to be incredibly vicious, Moore is a hoot throughout to where she makes it hard for us to hate Poppy even though we should despise her from the get go. She also has kidnapped a certain musician who… Well, I will leave you to discover the identity of the superstar she has kidnapped for her own personal entertainment.

While this sequel does tread familiar ground, it allows our protagonists to travel to Kentucky where they meet their American equivalent, the Statesman who have a flair for alcohol as Kingsman does for clothing. It also allows for charming American actors like Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges and Halle Berry to join the party in a variety of roles which they fit them like a glove. It’s especially nice to see Berry in something good after appearing in the critical debacle released this past summer which was “Kidnap.”

One who stands out in “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal, best known for his work in “Game of Thrones” and “Narcos,” as Statesman secret agent Whiskey. Pascal has a wonderful Burt Reynolds vibe going on here, and I don’t just mean his mustache. He also proves to be incredibly effective with a lasso, albeit an electronic one which can decapitate its victims as well as capture them before they can escape.

As for the cast members from the original, Taron Egerton does a wonderful job of taking Gary “Eggsy” Unwin to the next stage in his life as we watch his character continue his journey from leading an aimless life to embracing one filled with purpose. Eggsy still has his friends from the past, but he is open to embracing a future which includes a lifelong commitment to the woman he loves. It’s not often you see a spy movie where a secret agent calls his girlfriend to ask for permission to sleep with the enemy in order to save the world.

Mark Strong also gets to have more fun with his character of Merlin as he gets to be more of a field agent this time out. Strong also makes Merlin’s funniest moments feel genuine to where it feels more emotionally moving than I expected. His rendition of a particular John Denver song carries more meaning these days than when it first became a hit, and it makes for of this sequel’s most unforgettable moments even as the Monty Python bit, “Farwell to John Denver,” kept playing in my head as I watched him.

And yes, it is so great to see Colin Firth back as Harry Hart. While Harry suffered a rather grisly fate in the original, this character had to come back in one way or another. Even as Harry struggles to remember the secret agent he once was, Firth invests him with a dignity and sense of duty which empowers his performance in a very memorable way.

When all is said and done, I did have a lot of fun with “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” regardless of its flaws. At almost 2 hours and 30 minutes, it runs a lot longer than it should, and it does suffer from overkill as Vaughn looks at times to be desperate in topping what came before. The sequel also could have been more anarchic as the original lovingly laid waste to many spy movie clichés. This one threatens to be a little more conventional, but it still embraces its R-rating with a lot of glee.

Rumor has it that Vaughn already has a third “Kingsman” in the works, and it would be great to see this franchise grow even further. But if he is to make another one, my hope is he embraces the anarchic nature of the original more than he did here. As spy movies continue to be made, the genre will always need a swift kick in the butt.

* * * out of * * * *