Rating: 
Summary: Stop and think before watching
Review: Hi! I'm the rating system. Have we met before? I'm not sure if we have since I see a lot of people shocked by the content of the movie. Anyway, I show up to let people know what to expect when they see a movie so that they don't witness something that they don't want to see, and instead see something they do. Or, I give warning so that they can enjoy something they know they won't be offended by.
In this movie, you can find me shaped like a big letter "R." Why? Well to start, there's a lot of bad words. Also, there's some graphic displays of sex which only adults should see. Don't forget the violence too! Now keep in mind, "R" means that if you're under 17, you shouldn't see this movie since you're not mature enough for it. For the rest of you, ask yourself, "If a 16-year-old might be shocked by this movie, will I be?" If it's yes, don't see this movie.
Now then, if the stuff I've listed doesn't offend you too much, or you don't mind it in context with the movie, you'll like this movie! In order to know what shape to take, I had to sit through this whole movie. After watching it, I realized that if you're to enjoy this movie, you can't judge Eminem by the musician he is. I know because sometimes I take the form of a "Parental Advisory Sticker!" See, on Eminem's CD's, he tries to shock you. In this movie, he tries to tell a story. He's not the same person in both!
In this movie, he does a great job of telling that story too. You really feel like you understand what he's going through even though you might be from a small town in Kansas. From being a shy laid back guy who's trying to keep his family going while trying to be a success, to discovering his talent, Eminem left me feeling that I want to be the best rating label I can be! I'm sure it left others feeling like they can do anything too. I can't promise that you'll like every scene in this movie, but as long as you take a look at what's in the movie based on what I tell you, I think you'll make the wise decision.
Rating: 
Summary: WOW...........NOT.
Review: Who is watching this stuff and giving it so much praise. I fell for all the hype, sucker. There is simply some good acting on eminem's behalf here but the the movie it self sucks. Much more could have came out of a story like this. Hell I've been in plenty of gang fights my self and I know that after that many guys jump you, you end up with more than a black eye. My point, it just doesn't feel real at all. I'm sure Mr. Eminem had a ruff life, as so do many people who live in the ghetto, but there has to be a better way to tell it.
Rating: 
Summary: Eminem maybe too good
Review: The movie 8mile was good but not that great. I expected it too be more. The movie was good but everyone already knew what was going to happen in the movie. Eminem raps about it all the time. This movie was really funny the rap battles were really funny..the things he said were laugh out loud. Britney Murphey once again played herself, what a surprise. The special features was okay though I didnt like the superman video cause of that nasty girl who flashed the screen..like there was a point to that. The movie couldve done alot better...but the one ood parts was the battles and that was mostly it...I guess once you hear Eminem is in a movie you already start thinking its wonderful...I am one of Eminems biggest fans but I just want to tell the truth...thats why I went to the movies to watch 8mile..If someone else was playing Jimmy "rabbit" Smith. I dont think I would have watched it.
Rating:
Summary: Bad urban melodrama
Review: I really wanted to like this movie, I really did. The rap fights were entertaining, though I kept asking myself why we were supposed to be rooting for Eminem when his competitors seemed to have better rhythm and rhymes. The music often drowned out the dialogue (which was probably a blessing, because what I *could* hear wasn't anything special). The supporting characters were either weak (in the case of Kim Basinger's southern-fried performance) or misused (like Brittany Murphy, who basically just had to drift in and out of any scene in which Rabbit was confronted with some kind of Crisis). The one exception was Mekhi Phifer, who was consistently charismatic throughout (then again, he was actually given a proper role to play). And then there's the ridiculous Hollywood ending, that allows Eminiem/Rabbit/whoever to give the audience a Startling Revelation about an Evil Secondary Character that is supposed to provide Rabbit some Redemption and Eminem with (let's not kid ourselves) some Legitimacy. Whatever. I thought it was all just dull and ultimately contrived.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Review: It helps to have listened to some rap music but it's not a requirement for seeing and appreciating this film. Eminem is nothing less than wonderful in his first starring role and brings surprising energy and intelligence to his role as would-be rapper Rabbit. Everything about the film feels right, feels authentic--including the rivalries and the affection shared by Rabbit and his friends. The big bonus is Kim Basinger (who owns an academy award for L.A. Confidential--for reasons not at all clear to me) who pulls out all the stops and turns in a stunningly gritty performance here as Rabbit's slow-witted, beer-swilling, man-hungry trailer park mother. This film doesn't feel artificial in any way; all the sets seem realer than real and the aura of poverty is almost tangible. While the story of a young man with a dream isn't anything new, the script, the performances and Eminem elevate it beyond the ordinary. And big points have to go to the non-Hollywood ending. Reality is winning the day and then catching a bus to go back to work.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: WHAT?!?
Review: They hyped this movie a bit too much I think. From what I had heard I was expecting the greatest hip hop movie of all time. Don't get me wrong, its ok... but not what I'd expected. This movie needed a tad less sex. ... That said, the freestyles in the movie are great. If they would have had more scenes at the Shelter or the Chin Tiki, the movie would have been a lot better. Eminem does have acting skills though, the scenes with his "little sister" are touching... or something like that.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly a disappointment
Review: I am truly amazed at the number of good reviews and hype this movie got. Eminem should just stick to music,a nd please, no more horrid sex scenes! The best part of this movie was the ending.
Rating:
Summary: Will the real Slim Shady please shut up?
Review: To me, Eminem's music is boring, aggravating, poseur schlop. This movie is no better. This, along with xXx (aka zZz) and the Fast and the Furious (aka the Slow and the Timid), go under the category of brain-dead flavor-of-the-week "cinema". I quote a reviewer of Fast and the Furious: "Is this what 100 years of filmmaking has led up to?" It's not even worthy of any more of a review.
Rating:
Summary: Need More Like It. But...
Review: It's good to see poverty on the big screen. It's good for suburban vouyers to see what goes on in the "other" part of town, the places they don't stop to ask directions or don't care about politically. I already liked Eminem and rap music in general, so I'm biased as hell. But I have to admit that I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was, though the director has a proven track record. It surely beat out "Glitter" and "Cross Roads" and whatever that cheezy Mandy Moore movie was. Granted I didn't see those, so, once again, I'm biased as...
The only thing that upset me was that I knew how the haters out there would react. "Oh, so THAT's all him and his friends think could get them out of the ghetto--RAP! What about a good job or school, huh?"
Well, these people obviously don't know what it's like to have dead-end jobs that pay at or just above minimum-wage dominate your area, or schools where you're more scared of being beaten or worse than why X equals Y or whatever nonsense pales in comparison to the surrounding realities. Plus the misery that your parents go through when they're stuck in the same hopeless cities. BUT, you see, THAT's why the message of this movie is uplifting in a twisted way. Rap, my dear reader, is the poetry of the streets, of frustration. It's a cry for the world that often ignores you to actually UNDERSTAND you. (Listen to Wu-Tang's old song, C.R.E.A.M, or 'Cash Rules Everything Around Me.' It's a classic) And, for all of you who deplore the "violence" in the lyrics (funny, I never saw nobody shot with a mouth. If you want violence, try the If It Bleeds It Leads evening news or obsessive, war-happy news), pay attention to the movie. The "rap battles" that Rabbit and his friends enjoy performing in or watching REPLACES THE VIOLENCE. These young people are actually avoiding the brutality of the street by acting out their agression ON STAGE rather than in the streets and VERBALLY rather than physically. (imagine if world leaders, instead of blowing each other up, actually took microphones and hit the stage for a little battleing. We could have Pay-per-view of George Bush Vs. Saddam, Noriega Vs. George Sr., etc.) So, in other words, the internal feelings that inspire white, middle-class poets of old and new to express themselves and their surroundings aslo drives these young men and women to express themselves, and each method reflects their external world. If you went to the same kinds of school I did as a kid, you'll remember the "yo' momma" jokes that kids used to tease each other with. Well, rapping, or at least the "battle," is simply a more creative, more complicated way of having fun, venting frustration, and, at the same time, tapping into the inner poet or lyricist inside. Watch the movie with that in mind and just FORGET that it happens to be Eminem, and you might see through all the hype that surrounds this young talent. Anyway, I'm going off too much...but.. And don't the critics of this movie think the constant dreams the characters have of becoming a "big-time rapper" has a little to do with the modern rap scene and the way in which it's portrayed on "Music" television/ the media in general? To a bunch of kids who've never seen money in their lives, it's pretty tempting to see some guy on TV with champagne and hundred dollar bills and an endless supply of apparently sex-craved women and sports cars. Rap today NEEDS more reality and less pandering to the hopes and dreams of those that would do more good for society by pursuing careers they're more likely to be successful at. In other words, if life wasn't so miserable, then half the "pop" rap you see on MTV wouldn't do as well as it does. Hell, with how the lives of most rappers on MTV are portrayed, who WOULDN'T want their jobs? (that's why schools and communities like those in the setting of 8 Mile need attention from Washington. So that the same old rich white guys who hate evil rap music will actually give poor kids a better chance of not wanting to grow up to be the "evil rap guys" they hate so much) Anyway, the movie is well-made, well-acted, and actually has a point if you're paying attention, and even if I wasn't a fan of old Marshal, I'd still shut up and admit the movies is, let's say, better than half the "reality" driven movies out there on youth today. I hope reading this was worth it, because now I regret doing such a long review. I got so into writing this that I just missed my ride......oh well.
Rating:
Summary: **** THE EMINEM SHOW ****
Review: So here it is, the movie 'debut' of Eminem, the man once referred to by President Bush as 'the most dangerous threat to American children since polio'. Directed by Curtis Hanson (previously responsible for the excellent LA Confidential), Marshall Mathers III stars as Jimmy 'B. Rabbit' Smith, a wannabe rapper struggling to break of a life of poverty on the wrong side of Detroit's 8 Mile Road. 8 Mile opens with B. Rabbit about to go on stage to take part in an open mic rap contest at a rap venue called 'The Shelter'. Plagued by nerves, he throws up in the bathroom and down his sweater before going on stage, where in front of a cynical and somewhat hostile back audience he completely dries up in an embarrassing case of stage fright. Homeless and car-less after splitting up with his 'pregnant' girlfriend he has to return to his mother's trailer home, whereupon he disturbs his mother (Kim Basinger) mid-coital with her younger lover Greg. As if that is not embarrassing enough his mother later confides to a horrified Rabbit that she is having problems with her sex life because Greg wont go down on her. Almost everything in 8 Mile suggests that this is less than fiction and whilst perhaps not quite autobiographical it is certainly quasi-autobiographical. Much like a pre-superstardom Eminem, his character Jimmy has an absentee father, he hangs around with a multiracial crew and takes part in rapping competitions. Jimmy's mother is a drunken fool neglecting her four-year old daughter, whilst living with a no-good loser virtually the same age as her son, in a squalid trailer. Jimmy's crew dream of becoming rap stars and see their rhyming skills as being their best hope of getting out of the inner city deprivation and urban wasteland of America's famous motor city. However, whilst dreaming of a way out of the urban wasteland and poverty that surrounds him Rabbit still has to work a day job in a steel pressing plant where his boss gives him a hard time for his time-keeping and attitude. Eminem is not just the most famous rapper in America, he is quite simply the biggest star on the planet. In the superstardom stakes he is, if you will pardon the comparison, the new Michael Jackson (without the chimp, the plastic surgery, the dance moves and with a great deal more profanity). Of course 8 Mile isn't actually Eminem's film debut; that was in The Wash, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg's ill-conceived remake of the 70's flick 'Car Wash', where he made a cameo appearance as a phone-stalker psycho. As The Wash proved, rap artists don't necessarily make great actors or great films (remember Vanilla Ice in the cringeworthy Cold As Ice anyone?) and with the exception of Ice Cube and Tupac Shakur, very few have actually made the transition from music to movies as well as this. Perhaps not an obviously heroic figure Eminem's public persona has been somewhat modified in his role as Jimmy 'Rabbit' Smith. Jimmy's actions are anti-homophobic (he comes to the defence of one of his gay colleagues), he is positively passive (rather than verbally violent) to all the women in his life regardless of how much they wrong him. Indeed the movie opens with Rabbit having given his car and home away to his ex-girlfriend who claims to be pregnant and he returns to his mom's trailer where he raps an improvised lullaby to his little sister. For much of the movie, Rabbit is a brooding somewhat introverted character. He travels to his work on the bus, headphones on, hooded and scribbling down new ideas for lyrics. However the movie and Eminem both come alive during the rap battles, which are central to the plot, where rival rappers verbally tear each other limb from limb in front of a hostile crowd. Taunting Rabbit with cries of 'Elvis' and comments about his mother and their trailer park home, this is Eminem in his equivalent of Rocky's boxing ring or General Maximus Decimus Meridus's coliseum. Rabbit must overcome his own fears and self-doubt in order to emerge triumphant. Out-with this critics will say that Director Curtis Hanson (The Wonder Boys) has deliberately restricted Eminem to a range of acting, which does not require much flexing of thespian muscle. However, this is something of a moot point because it works. Eminem looks good. It is a credible and understated performance and 8 Mile is an entertaining and uplifting movie, which showcases his great talent. As always, Curtis Hanson's direction is flawless and he has surrounded Slim Shady with an excellent supporting cast. In particular, Mekhi Phifer (ER) as Rabbit's best buddy 'Future', Brittany Murphy (Don't Say A Word) as would be trashy new girlfriend Alex, Evan Jones as the dopey Cheddar Bob and Kim Basinger are all excellent. Perhaps not the most original story ever told, 8 Mile has been compared to Rocky, Saturday Night Fever and A Star Is Born. However, it is refreshing to see that 8 Mile is free of a traditional Hollywood ending and instead finishes on a more realistic note with an important message; Dreams cannot be realised if all you do is dream. Hard work and perseverance are the keys to success and the only person you can totally rely upon is yourself.
|
