What's Love Got to Do with It (1993)

First, I should note that I don't know most of Tina Turner's music, and I've never seen any of her performances. That said, "What's Love Got to Do with It" is a fine movie. Even though biopics have become a cliché - and many of them are cynical excuses to get the stars Academy Award nominations (the god-awful "Man on the Moon" is one of the worst offenders) - this is still a movie that you have to see. Starting with Tina's humble beginnings when she was still known as Anna Mae Bullock, we see her move to St. Louis where she meets Ike Turner. She soon becomes part of his act and marries him, only to find out that he has a volatile side.Angela Bassett puts on the performance of a lifetime as Tina. I understand that she managed to impersonate Tina's moves to a tee. And then there's Laurence Fishburne as the abusive Ike. His performance made me feel as if I was walking on eggshells. The rest of the characters aren't developed that extensively, but the focus is supposed to be on Tina and Ike anyway.Bassett and Fishburne received Oscar nods for their performances. Although they didn't win, you can't deny the effort that they put into these roles. It affirms them as two of the greatest actors of their generations. It's one outstanding film, and I recommend it.In more recent developments, Ike died in 2007. Tina renounced her US citizenship and now lives in Switzerland with her current husband.

This is maybe a first time I heard about Tina Turner and her songs. In short,the film was very interesting.Acctualy,Ithink that every biography is interesting. The first scene is cute and catchy.But,for the beginning of the film,we see that her childhood was not happy.And that will form her adulthood. So there is one interesting dimension of film:the wounds from childhood.Then we skip few years to the very important moment of her life:the first touch with Ike and The kings of rhythm.The acting is amazingly good.I felt every characters feelings. The most interesting is Ike:he is charming but violent,from the beginning he want's to dominate to others.Because of a lession that film gives and extraordinary quality of the film,it is useful to watch it.

This film is truly extraordinary. This is one of those films that you will not forget about. Angela Bassett portrayed Tina Turner perfectly in this movie. Whether you were a fan of Tina Turner's music or not you will feel some type of respect for her and what she went through after watching this film. She lived a life that not too many people were familiar with. This movie teaches you so much about her and what she went through and that celebrities aren't always as happy as they appear to be and that behind the scenes anything goes. Tina's husband Ike Turner, who was played by Laurence Fishburne, used and abused her in the movie. He initially got her started and made her a big star but he controlled all aspects of her musical career, and her life! He became obsessed with her and would beat her a lot. After years of being in this domestic violence filled relationship Tina finally came to her senses and left her, it took a lot of years because she was very gullible. This movie is so interesting and it will keep viewers captured all the way to the end because they want to figure out how it will end. Will she fight back? Will he kill her? Will she kill him? These were questions that were going through my mind as I sat and watched the film. This is one of my favorite films and although the movie reveals Tina's constant struggle with Ike, ironically the movie had it's funny moments. This is a must see. Excellent film 10/10.

Although based upon Tina Turner's co-authored autobiography "I, Tina", "What's Love Got To Do With It" plays like a condensed version of a star's memoir, half-fabricated and the other half taken from a supermarket tabloid. While the performances are spot-on, brave and intense, and the original tunes frequently sound incredible, the facts and details of Anna Mae Bullock's relationship with R&B shaker Ike Turner remain hazy and suspect. Certain set-pieces, like Tina's recording session with Phil Spector, look marvelous but serve no particular purpose (and the film lets us think Ike had no involvement in a group-project that resulted in a full album, not just a single release). Angela Bassett is undoubtedly just the perfect choice to portray the exciting Tina Turner, but what of Turner's own tumultuous personality? The movie's narrative gives all the fire and anger to husband Ike, despite Tina's burgeoning muscular arms (she didn't get those muscles from Buddhist chanting!). Also lost are the solo years between leaving Ike and finding success on the pop charts in 1984. The film hopes to wrap things up with a little unnecessary melodrama, but just fouls itself up trying to make a (tired) point about finding one's inner peace and independence. The look of the film is quite remarkable throughout, and the early sequences are entertainingly staged, but very little of the film's final third rings true or comes to close to matching what music-historians know to be accurate. **1/2 from ****