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 ****
Review of What's Love Got to Do with It
