Horst_In_Translation Review of Rhythm Nation 1814

Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989)

Janet's mostly forgettable early attempt to follow in her brother's footsteps

[4/10 · 17 October 2017]

"Rhythm Nation 1814" is a half hour short film packed with music by recording artist Janet Jackson. She is also credited as the creator here and one of the writers. Another writer is Dominic Sena, who is also the director of this one and of several fairly famous movies. Now we all know Michael Jackson has several really long music videos in his body of work, very spectacular to watch at times. But this one here is nothing I'd call spectacular. The songs performed by Janet feel generic and forgettable and from the story perspective, things look even worse. Neither the video nor the audio side could convince me here and not even the fact that this is a black-and-white film can really make it look artistic or creative and I am a sucker for (modern) b&w stuff. Although "modern" is perhaps not too accurate as this is from 1990, so already easily over a quarter of a century old and Janet was in her early 20s still when she made it. But she has done better on several occasions in her career, this one is really nothing to be proud of. Neither is the name "Propaganda Films" for a production company. So yeah, with this one Janet is not (yet) getting close, maybe with the Oscar nomination she received not much later, something her brother never managed. And physically she looks so much like him too. I give Rhythm Nation 1814 a thumbs-down. Not recommended and looking at its IMDb rating, it seems highly overrated to me. Skip it.