Following in the footsteps of many other pop icons such as Prince and Vanilla Ice, Eminem made his way onto the big screen in the movie “8 Mile.”
The movie premiered Friday selling out four showings at United Artists Citiplace 11. Some local Eminem fans walked away in disgust as they found the film had sold out.
“I’m kind of interested in seeing the man’s acting ability. He’s not a bad performer,” said Ben Kopel, a sociology sophomore. “I’m really kind of curious to see if he’s as good as or even better than Vanilla Ice in his movie “Cool as Ice.'”
Another student wanted to see if his acting is as good as his music.
“I want to go see it. His music isn’t half bad and I want to see how well he can act,” said Marx Hoffman, a construction management senior. “The previews look really good, but I wonder if they can pull it off.”
The movie centers around the plight of Eminem’s character Jimmy Smith Jr. Smith lives in Detroit with his friends and dreams of one day getting that “big deal.” He and everyone around him struggles to make it to somewhere outside of Detroit.
In the opening scene, Smith just broke things off with his girlfriend and is about to compete in a “battle.” A lot of the action of the movie centers around these “battles” where people attempt to insult each other in rhyme and win the respect of the crowd.
“It’s competition. It’s like a sport that is somebody’s whole life. It may look silly to a lot of people, but to a lot of us, it’s our world,” Eminem says.
The movie’s main rivalry comes as Smith tries to make his way toward the big record deal. This involves getting past the rival hip-hop “crew” by using colorful four-letter words and fighting with each other.
It’s not such a stretch for Eminem to play an angry white boy in a field African-Americans dominate. Smith seems to summarize how Eminem saw himself as he waited to make it big.
The movie does have some humor such as Smith’s friend Cheddar Bob, Evan Jones, shooting himself in the leg when he tries to stick his gun back in his pants and when Smith’s mother wants to talk to him about her sex life.
With Curtis Hanson of “L.A. Confidential” as the director and Brian Grazer of “A Beautiful Mind” as producer, the film had some great potential. However, it just didn’t seem to create a believable vision.
For all the movie’s attempts to be deep and speak of people trying to surmount great odds, it falls short. Eminem plays the same role he does in real life and it’s really hard to take him seriously.
Just like Eminem’s music, the movie is filled with homosexual slurs and four-letter words. It even features an abusive mother played by Kim Basinger.
After getting past the rich hip-hop icon image Eminem got from his music, the film is mediocre. All in all, the movie isn’t bad; it’s just not that good. It might make a good rental.