By the numbers story of the Kid (Prince), a singer, on his way to becoming a star. Then he falls in love with Apollonia (Appolonia Kotero). But he has to deal with his wife-beating father (Clarence Williams III!) and his own self-destructive behavior.

I saw this in a theatre in 1984. I was no big fan of Prince but I did like the three big songs from this movie--"Purple Rain", "Let's Get Crazy", and "When Doves Cry". The concert scenes in this movie are great--full of energy and excitement. Unfortunately that's a VERY small portion of the movie.

The story is screamingly obvious and have been done many times before--and much better too. The subplots are, to put in nicely, badly handled. The love triangle between The Kid, Appolonia and Morris Day was so predictable and tired that I actually became insulted. His wife beating father is needed for the story, but the scenes are so badly handled (in acting and direction) that I couldn't believe it. The script is terrible--lousy dialogue and some truly painful "comedy" routines. And there's tons of misogyny here--The Kid's mother getting beaten; The Kid hitting Appolonia and (for no reason) Appolonia strips and goes topless to swim in a dirty river. Also Williams' and Princes' characters treat women in a horrible manner constantly.

The acting is where this movie REALLY fails. Appolonia is sweet and beautiful--but no actor. And Prince is (easily) the WORST actor I've ever seen. His blank face and wooden dialogue delivery are so bad I couldn't believe it. This movie only comes to life during the concert scenes but there aren't really that many. The "dramatic" scenes are so badly acted and handled that they make this movie a chore to sit through. They should have just made this a concert film. I give this a 2--only for the music.

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a).