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At barely 90 minutes, the film sill seems interminably long thanks to screenwriter Prince’s inability to flow smoothly from scene to scene or point to point. Characters are never really developed; they are just kind of “there”. The choppy editing by Rebecca Ross and an uncredited Hubert C. De La Bouillerie - who between them also did Cherry Moon, Woodstock, Cyber Bandits, Police Academy 5 and 6, and Highlander II - makes a mockery of being able to enjoy the performances in the film, that take up about half the running time (would that they took up more).

There are numbers by The Time, George Clinton, and Mavis Staples, but 13-year-old Tevin Campbell walks away with the win thanks to the still catchy “Round and Round." And even two decades later, “Thieves in the Temple," Prince’s only hit from the soundtrack, crackles and burns like a lost track from the Batman sessions, brooding and dark but danceable. But with twice as many songs as Purple Rain in far less time, most of the tunes don’t receive their due. (This is definitely a case of “listen to the album and skip the movie,” even if the album suffers from a lack of cohesion as well. This could be due to the fact that the 17 songs were anywhere from three to eight years old when they were assembled, with the exception of “Round and Round”, “Thieves in the Temple” and the two-part “New Power Generation”, which were all written for the film, and were all singles.)

And when the film finally rambles and shambles its way to its supposedly tragic/epic/uplifting end and the lackluster ballad “Still Would Stand All Time” arrives to function in the same way that “Purple Rain” did - to lift your heart and bring a tear and help a flawed movie rise above the sum of its parts? Well, it doesn’t and you won’t.

Next time: His feature Drive is currently wowing critics and pissing off audiences in equal measure. Chapter Two looks at the second installment in the trilogy that helped make Nicolas Winding Refn’s reputation - With Blood on my Hands: Pusher 2. I understand it’s slightly violent.

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