So, a little fun fact first before the review. When Prince passed away, I put in a request at my library to revisit Purple Rain, a movie I haven't seen in years in its entirety. So, I was "early" enough to get my name on the list and came in at #53 on the wait list. Not bad right? WRONG! What should have taken at most 3 months to arrive didn't arrive until a few days ago. Do the math.......that's 10 months!!!! WTF!! Okay, onto the movie itself....

So, the last time I actually did watch the movie was so damn long ago that I realized that it was when I rented it on VHS. The DVD format was still a few years away because had it been around at the time, I definitely would have gone down that route. The thing that slammed me in the face as soon as I pushed play on the DVD player last night was the fact that it was in 4:3 film aspect ratio. I've gotten so use to 16:9 Widescreen over the years that I totally forgot that 4:3 was a thing in this day and age. Just a really weird and jarring movie watching experience. I felt like I was missing a lot of the film.

Anyway, given how long it has been since the last time I watched the movie, I had forgotten a lot of the "plot". But more than that, I had forgotten just how funny the team of Morris Day and Jerome were here. Their Abbott and Costello bit where they do their own version of the "Who's On First...." skit was hilarious. As for the rest of the film, the movie was way better than I remember it to be. To say this is a "movie" in the traditional sense is pushing it. It's more of a long-form music video that just happens to have a rail thin plot. Boy chases and loses girl and wins her back. Boy deals with the fallout of a home life built in chaos. Boy more or less wins the "battle of the bands" at the end. In spite of some seriously iffy acting performances, cheesy dialogue and bad editing cuts, I still came away from this very entertained and that of course is the charisma of Prince and the music within the film. It's definitely worth a Rent. I'd watch it again.

Another thing I totally forgot was how many times that we the viewer get to hear "slow groove" throughout the movie before the grand finale performance of Purple Rain itself. It was kind cool in being able to see what it was and what it eventually became. One last thing, it felt very strange for the actors in the movie to be referring to Lisa and Wendy in that manner when they were and have been referred as Wendy & Lisa since 1984.