Lee Eisenberg 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.

Boba_Fett1138 There is plenty wrong with this movie as a biopic, however when you look at it as purely being a movie, it is a surprisingly great one.I never really considered Tina Turner to be such a good subject for a biopic, especially not in the '90's. First of all she was still alive and at an all time popular height and second of all, she in my opinion is not a that big star, when compared to all other people who get a biopic made about them. But I must say that after seeing this movie i have a whole lot more respect for her by now and I was definitely wrong about her career and life not being worthy or interesting enough for making a movie about it.The movie was a positive surprise. But nevertheless there still is plenty wrong with it as a biopic. It suffers from lots of the stuff other genre movies often suffer from. Thing with biopics often is that you try to capture a persons entire life and career into a 2 hour long movie. This means some stuff will often get rushed and shoved down your throat. You often just have to take things for granted, without them ever getting developed properly and convincing enough, like would be the case in a normal film drama about a normal average, every day person. And yes, this happens quite a lot in this movie. It often makes some very sudden jumps with its story and make jumps in time as well. We just never get to see how popular Tina Tuner is with the public and some things seem to happen very randomly in this movie, just because they happened in her real life as well. It at times feels like some stuff really got crow-bared into the film. They movie because of that also feels quite distant at times as a biopic, since you don't ever get the feeling you are really getting into the character.But having said all that, the movie still works out great. The story is always intriguing and keeps you interest throughout. It's also really fast-going, which makes this a bit of a distant one when it comes down to its emotions and characters but at the same time keeps this movie consistently good to watch, since you never get bored with things.It's also true that it are the actors performance that keep the movie going and make this a great watch. Angela Bassett really shines and she deserved her Oscar nomination. Same goes for Laurence Fishburne as the abusive Ike Turner, who is perhaps the foremost reason why this movie remains such a good and interesting watch. His character, no matter how awful he is, is still what gives the story as well as the Tina Turner some real depth. Because lets face it, would Tina Turner's life had been interesting enough for a biopic if she had never met Ike? I really don't think so.But of course the movie does not only focus on her personal life but also her career. It's quite fascination to see how she started out and at several points at her career had to start all over again but every time came back stronger, as a performer and person as well. It's why I now have so much more respect for her after seeing this movie. I now kind of wished I would had gone to her concert when she was in town here a decade ago. Besides, I really don't think you have to be a fan of her music in order to enjoy and appreciate her incredible stage presence and performance. Same sort of goes for this movie. You really don't have to be that much in Tina Turner in order to really like and appreciate this movie.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

James Hitchcock Recent years have seen a number of pop star biopics, such as "Ray", "Walk the Line" and "Dreamgirls", a fictionalised version of the story of Diana Ross and the Supremes. (I understand that a life of Marvin Gaye is to come in the near future). "What's Love Got to Do with It", based on Tina Turner's autobiography, was one of the earliest in this genre."Ray" and "Walk the Line" both laid considerable emphasis on their subjects' early years. Like Ray Charles and Johnny Cash, Anna Mae Bullock (Tina's real name) was born in America's Deep South in the 1930s and grew up in poverty. Her birthplace, Nutbush, Tennessee, was later immortalised in her song "Nutbush City Limits". (Her promotion of this small village to city status was presumably a piece of sardonic humour). The film does not, however, dwell on her childhood at any length, although there is one scene in which the young Anna Mae is thrown out of her local church choir for singing with too much fervour. (Ironically, she was later to renounce Christianity in favour of Buddhism, and this is dealt with in the film, although we are left with the misleading impression that the Buddhist religion consists of little more than the attainment of inner peace through the repeated chanting of a phrase in a foreign language).There is a convention, observed by most showbiz biographies, that success doesn't come easily. The star must be shown battling against internal demons or external forces which hinder his or her rise to the top and then threaten to destroy his or her career. This convention may be something of a cliché, yet it is often a necessary one, needed to give dramatic force to narratives that might otherwise be bland and uninteresting. It is for this reason that I found the Jennifer Lopez film "Selena" vaguely unsatisfactory. Selena Quintanilla-Perez seemed to achieve success as easily as breathing and, as portrayed by Lopez, was so innocent and wholesome that the concept of internal demons was entirely foreign to her. Her murder in the final scenes- even though this is what happened to the real Selena- seemed like an ending tacked on from some entirely different movie.In this film the threat to Tina is not an internal demon but an external one, in the shape of her husband, mentor, and performing partner, Ike, The film concentrates largely on the first two decades of Tina's career, and especially on her marriage. Yet, in the early part of the film, Ike is not the villain of the piece. In the 1950s he was an established star in his own right, and the film describes how he met Anna Mae while she was living in St Louis in the late fifties, how he became first her lover, then her husband and how created her career as a performer. They were to win fame in the sixties as a husband-and-wife double-act, "Ike and Tina Turner". (Ike suggested that she take Tina as her stage name).As the film progresses, however, it becomes clear that Ike is an unstable personality with an uncontrollable temper, subject to fits of rage in which he abuses Tina both verbally and physically. Although he created her as a performer, he comes close to destroying her as a person. Eventually, after fifteen years Tina has had enough, and the marriage ends in divorce. The title is taken from another of her well-known songs, although it might also be taken as her comment on her marriage. What had love got to do with the way Ike treated her? The last part of the film deals with Tina's attempts to make a new career as a solo performer, but overlooks her long-standing relationship with her German partner Erwin Bach. Hollywood is often uncomfortable with the idea of mixed-race relationships, even real-life ones.Angela Bassett was very good at conveying the raw energy and sexual power of Tina's stage performances, although it is Tina's voice that we actually hear. I was, however, less impressed by her interpretation of the role in the rest of the film and was surprised that she was nominated for an Oscar, especially as there were some deserving performances that were overlooked (notably Michelle Pfeiffer in "The Age of Innocence"). Bassett's Tina, away from the stage or the recording studio, came across as too passive and willing to submit to Ike's demands, as well as a bit too saintly.Laurence Fishburne was better, bringing out both the Jekyll and the Hyde in Ike's character, both his charisma and his violent fury, although the film perhaps does not explain why their marriage should have lasted for so long. The film may have been based upon Tina's autobiography, but autobiographies are not always the most reliable sources of information, and this reliance on a single, partial, source means that "What's Love Got to Do with It", although a very watchable and at times powerful drama, ends up rather unbalanced, with too many black and white distinctions and too few shades of grey. 6/10

Isaac5855 WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT is the dazzling 1993 musical biopic that chronicles the legendary Tina Turner, from her humble beginnings as a show off in her church choir when she was a kid named Anna Mae Bullock to her now legendary success as one of the top rock and roll performers of our generation. As expected, the majority of the film focuses on Anna Mae's relationship with Ike Turner, a musician who works steadily but stays on the cusp of stardom until meeting Anna Mae, changing her name to Tina and making her the lead singer of the group. The film shines a not-too-flattering light on Ike's abusive treatment of Tina, which ranges from severe beatings to marital rape. The screenplay, clearly based on Tina's autobiography I, TINA, is kind of one-sided...in the film, Tina is presented as just this side of Mother Theresa and that Ike single-handedly destroyed their marriage, but in later years, Turner has admitted that the movie does paint Ike in an unflattering light and that she had as much to do with the destruction of their marriage as he did. On the other hand, it is the single-sided view of the screenplay that helps to make this movie so entertaining...we have a crystal clear heroine and an equally clear villain here that arouse the expected reactions from the filmgoers. Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishbourne deliver electrifying performances as the Turners, performances that earned them both Oscar nominations and are the anchor of this film. Bassett does a more than credible job of lip-syncing to original Tina recordings. Yes, it may gloss over the facts and the actors may not look like the people they are portraying, but this film is powerhouse entertainment from start to finish.