Mabel Munoz
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"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.
Christopher T. Chase
Like a sepia-toned hybrid of BLADE RUNNER and a Depression Era gangster film, this was the companion video to Janet's chart-busting album of the same name. Up until this point, the videos she had done for her songs had been strictly of the live concert footage/single-concept-per-song variety, all nicely but pretty routinely choreographed and shot to be MTV-friendly. However, once big brother Michael raised the bar with THRILLER, everyone began brainstorming and producing full-length vids to go with their albums to varying degrees of success. This was Janet's response, cooked up with assistance from co-producer/partner/husband Rene Elizondo and well-known vid director Dominic Sena, (KALIFORNIA).With comic-book simplicity, the video intercuts between Janet interacting and hanging out with her friends, and two street musicians who have different ideas about which roads to take, to achieve their ultimate goal of snagging a record deal. When the headstrong, more independent of the duo insists on pursuing the fast track, the results are predictably tragic. On the run from approaching darkness, looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, what he finds is Janet and Company, who seemed to have mobilized into some kind of superhero unit, whose special powers, one would assume, are positivity and unity delivered through music and whipcrack-precise dance moves, dressed in costumes that can only be described as John Phillip Souza-wear, by way of Jean-Paul Gaultier.Because there isn't a truly cohesive storyline that can be detected, NATION suffers by comparison with THRILLER, which captured the pop zeitgeist of Michael's performance magic with disarming ease. But it is a decent effort all the way round, and you've got to like a project such as this that does present a positive message about avoiding drugs, crime and violence, offering music and friendship as viable alternatives instead.The club sequences are the strongest points here, and of course those great songs that Janet co-wrote and produced with Flyte Time Funkmeisters Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.Worth a look to see how well Little Sis picked up the gauntlet flung down by her brother in the long-form video arena. A lot of stars would not fare as well, (example: Mick Jagger's "Running Out Of Luck.")
