There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there is this, which makes "Grease 2" look like "West Side Story" and should be the go-to movie critics use when explaining to musicians with overactive egos why it's a bad idea to pretend to be an actor when one is not.
Finding a starting place for criticism is as hard as limiting the criticism to an amount that would fit into a single review. As a lead, Prince only is believable when on stage -- which is, of course, where he belongs, not trying to play the part of a tortured musical savant.
Prince's method of walking deserves its own special criticism, as he seems to move from step to step as if trying to plan the next flip of his hair or fluff of his coat. Never mind the fact that he is not likable in his role as protagonist.
The supporting cast is plenty awful in their own right. Poor Clarence Williams III almost buckles under the weight of trying to carry this collection of drama school dropouts from scene to scene. Things get so bad that some reviewers actually seem to think Morris Day and Jerome Benton can act; more accurately, they simply stink less than what surrounds them.
This movie is clearly just a vehicle for the ego-absorbed Prince to preen and sneer his way through badly-written, badly-directed and poorly-lit material. The best part of the movie are clearly the songs, and if you take this movie as one long music video, perhaps it works. But unless you like watching a good musician who happens to be a hack actor spend a couple of hours trying to overcome Short Man's Syndrome on film, skip this and watch something else.
Finding a starting place for criticism is as hard as limiting the criticism to an amount that would fit into a single review. As a lead, Prince only is believable when on stage -- which is, of course, where he belongs, not trying to play the part of a tortured musical savant.
Prince's method of walking deserves its own special criticism, as he seems to move from step to step as if trying to plan the next flip of his hair or fluff of his coat. Never mind the fact that he is not likable in his role as protagonist.
The supporting cast is plenty awful in their own right. Poor Clarence Williams III almost buckles under the weight of trying to carry this collection of drama school dropouts from scene to scene. Things get so bad that some reviewers actually seem to think Morris Day and Jerome Benton can act; more accurately, they simply stink less than what surrounds them.
This movie is clearly just a vehicle for the ego-absorbed Prince to preen and sneer his way through badly-written, badly-directed and poorly-lit material. The best part of the movie are clearly the songs, and if you take this movie as one long music video, perhaps it works. But unless you like watching a good musician who happens to be a hack actor spend a couple of hours trying to overcome Short Man's Syndrome on film, skip this and watch something else.