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Aaliyah Movie: Six Reasons Why The TV Biopic Is Not Worth Seeing

By Jonathan Franks
Published on: 14:54 PST, Nov 15, 2014

Aaliyah: Princess of R&B premiered on Lifetime on Saturday night. The biopic starred Alexandra Shipp in the titular role and a host of other actors and actresses that portrayed Aaliyah’s family members and the celebrities that played pivotal roles in the success of her blossoming music and film career.

If you did not get a chance to see the movie, here are six reasons why you did not miss very much and why it is truly not worth seeing at all.

Horrible Casting Choices: Perhaps one of the biggest eyesores that stood out the most in Lifetime’s Aaliyah movie was the poorly selected cast. It was basically as if someone randomly went down a list of unknown black actors and actresses and made their selections while wearing a blindfold.

In most biopics, the casting team at least comes somewhat close to matching the look of the actor/actress with the celebrity that they are portraying. In Aaliyah: Princess of R&B, they were way off. With the exception of casting Alexandra Shipp as Aaliyah, every other casting choice that they made was horrible. Gladys Knight. R. Kelly. Timbaland. Missy Elliott. Damon Dash. Not a single one was anywhere close to hitting the mark.

Horrible Acting: If you have a poorly selected cast, you have to at least make sure that their acting is through the roof and off the charts. Think about the successful biopics of the past that did not quite hit the mark when it came to finding the right look but surpassed expectations when it came to the acting.

This biopic was definitely not one of those movies. All of the blame cannot be placed on the laps of the actors in this regard. The majority of that burden has to be passed on to the screenwriters that worked on the script and the director that felt as if the final cut was ready for the world to see.

Horrible Singing: Alexandra Shipp stated in a recent interview with Hollywood Life that she did all of her own singing in the movie. Bottom line — that was a horrible idea. All of the songs were mediocre at best; she definitely missed the mark when it came to the singing.

You could tell from the quality of the songs Alexandra recorded herself that they were heavily produced and enhanced in the studio to sound somewhat decent. Instead of putting all of that effort into her singing, they should have just used lip syncing (or dubbed her voice over with someone else’s) and focused more on improving her acting.

No Support from Family: From the moment that the news of this movie being made was first made public, Aaliyah’s family made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with it. Without the support of the family of the celebrity being portrayed, most biopics fail miserably as a result.

This is especially the case when the biopic is about a singer or a musician since chances are that their music is what defined them and made them famous.

Could you imagine if biopics such as Walk the Line, Ray, La Bamba and The Buddy Holly Story did not have any of the major hits of their respective stars played in the movie? That is exactly what they tried to do with Aaliyah: Princess of R&B. Some of her biggest hits – “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,” “We Need a Resolution,” “Rock the Boat,” etc. – were only mentioned by name. One of her most successful, record-setting hits “Try Again” was not even mentioned at all.

Many Aaliyah fans and critics did not enjoy this movie primarily because of Aaliyah’s musical core not being present within the Wendy Williams-produced movie.

Poorly Written Story: The actual movie was far less than two hours long — which is pretty standard for most TV movies.

That means that every single scene and on-screen moment from beginning to end played an instrumental role in the overall story of Aaliyah being told. That is not what happened at all. More than half of the movie was focused on Aaliyah and R. Kelly — the music they made and their controversial relationship. By the time the story passed that point of Aaliyah’s life, the rest of the movie felt rushed.

Missy Elliott and Timbaland played a major role in Aaliyah’s life — personally and professionally. However, their characters were only shown in a couple of short scenes. Her relationship with Damon Dash was mainly summed up in a quick montage towards the end of the final act of the film.

Not Deep Enough for a Biopic: With the exception of the relationship between Aaliyah and R. Kelly, the rest of the movie felt very surface-level. One of the most enjoyable aspects of a well-developed biopic is being able to get an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the person’s life.

You are reminded of what you already knew, but you are also provided with a detailed perspective of what you did not know. Aaliyah: Princess of R&B failed at this as well. Chances are that they had very little to work with — especially since the family did not want anything to do with the production. But the entire movie basically felt like the writers checked out Aaliyah’s Wikipedia page and made a script based on what they found.

What did you think about the movie?

[Image Credit: Zap2It]

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