Not a bad movie for Eminem fans

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 2002)

I just saw 8 Mile last night at an advance screening at the University of Pennsylvania and I have to agree with most of the other comments already on here. I thought Eminem did a pretty good job in his acting debut. I thought he was most believable in the scenes where he was joking around with his friends. It seemed a little forced to me that they had Eminem standing up for the gay guy at work and then talking with him near the end before he goes off to the rap battle. It was an all to obvious way to show people that Eminem is not really homophobic. I also noticed that it didn't seem like Eminem had very much dialogue at all which made me think that perhaps the makers of the film were not completely confident in his acting abilities. I thought that the Brittany Murphy character was a complete waste and was just thrown in there to get Eminem a sex scene and was just added in to the very formulaic plot as the girl who has sex with two friends and causes them to fight. The movie was very predictable, but I thought it was enjoyable and the rap battles were awesome. They made the movie for me. The other acting was pretty good too. I thought Mekhi Phifer probably turned in the best acting performance of the entire cast and Kim Basinger was pretty good too. I think if you are an Eminem fan and you enjoy his lyrics, then you would enjoy this movie. Particularly the rap battles at the end, the lunch truck scene and when Eminem and Mekhi Phifer change the words around to Sweet Home Alabama.