Dangerously Undercaffeinated Movie Review: Notorious

This is exactly what the title suggests.

I watched the movie Notorious, and now I'm going to discuss it a bit. (yes, It's a movie that's a year old, but I just watched it for the first time. And I'm in charge here, damn it!)

First, a couple preliminary notes:
I've been a huge fan of rap for 20 years. From Run DMC to NWA to Tribe Called Quest to 2Pac to Biggie to Outkast to Jay-Z to Wu-Tang and everything in between. I love a lot of music, but overall it skews to about 60% hip-hop, 35% rock, 5% anything else....

If you aren't a fan of B.I.G., or at least a fan of hip-hop, you probably won't like, or watch, this movie.

So, on to thoughts on the movie.

First, it was horribly slow moving in a "Lord of the Rings as a movie about a hip-hop icon" kind of way. If I knew nothing of the characters involved and I stumbled upon the movie, I'd be bored. It was just barely interesting, and it moves along at a dead turtle's pace and convinces anyone that doesn't care about the story to flip the channel about 15 minutes in.

Second, this script had to be either written or approved by Bad Boy Records (i don't feel like doing any research to confirm this). Puffy comes off as a visionary leader, Biggie as a heroic symbol of hope whose flaws are quickly glossed over, Tupac as an emotional nut who overreacted to a coincidence. If this wasn't written under a pen name for Sean Combs, he was financing and amending it along the way.

Third, this was the easier movie to make. In the East Coast-West Coast rap war (which had to elicit at least a couple movies at some point), Biggie's story is easier to tell than Tupac's. The "Poor Kid From Brooklyn Who Makes It" story is easy to fit into 2 hours. The "Poor Kid Whose Parents Were Black Panthers and Who Overcame an Insane Revolutionary Family to Become a Transcendent Rapper and Outstanding Actor Prior to Being Murdered in the Streets of Vegas" story takes a little longer, and is much more difficult to translate to film. Also, FUCK SUGE KNIGHT. (not really relevant, but it needs to be said. often.)

Ultimately, it was a relatively dull, disappointing movie based on a story that should have been much more interesting. The main characters were treated too gently, the horrific misogyny was treated as an endearing character trait, the Tupac connection and relationship was oversimplified and idiotic, and Angela Bassett being involved makes Biggie's mom way more sexy than she should ever be, which is just disturbing.
If you're an irrational fan of Notorious B.I.G., or you're Puffy, you'll watch this movie and love it. If not, you either won't watch it at all, or you'll watch it and be horribly disappointed by how much you simply don't care at all.

Final Grade: C. That might seem like a passable grade to some, but that's because you're stupid. I got C's in the classes I skipped to get high. I would definitely recommend the soundtrack, though.