What's Love Got To Do With It? Reviews
September 8, 2017
Complete with the rock star wigs, superhero body and slightly timid but ever so deliberate snarl in her speech, Bassett embodied the icon during her slow and steady rise to fame, and her tumultuous marriage...
July 29, 2013
A powerful portrait of emotional endurance, propelled by the outstanding performances of Bassett and Fishburne, both of whom lend a crucial dimension to the gradual redundancies of Kate Lanier's otherwise insightful screenplay.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
July 29, 2013
Their nuanced performances give a spectrum of emotional shadings to a black-and-white script that casts Tina as the Beauty to Ike's unreconstructed Beast.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
July 29, 2013
Angela Bassett is a wonderfully sympathetic screen presence who may have a big career ahead of her.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
July 29, 2013
Fishburne's astonishing portrayal of Ike is what holds the movie together. The actor builds, in precise increments, a devastating portrait of a macho control freak; he even finds a kind of ghastly humor in the character's madness.
July 29, 2013
Though the picture rightfully belongs to Bassett, a final word must be said about Fishburne, who never fails to make Ike seem human if not defensible. Even in defeat, he is remarkably compelling.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
July 29, 2013
Basset genuinely holds your sympathy as the little country girl Anna Mae Bullock, singing and suffering her way to superstardom and personal liberation, [and] Fishburne is sensational.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
July 29, 2013
Brian Gibson, who directed the script by Kate Lanier, seems to have trouble taking charge of his material as he skips through the years.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
July 29, 2013
A powerful, joyful, raw, energetically acted bio-pic detailing the joys and pain of the on- and offstage lives of blues rockers Ike and Tina Turner.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
July 29, 2013
As a powerhouse showcase for the acting talents of Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne and as a potent portrayal of wife beating and the emotions that surround it, it's quite a show.
September 7, 2011
A splashy, volatile, crowd- pleasing rock-star melodrama that makes up in sheer emotional wallop what it sometimes lacks in finesse.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
March 26, 2009
A passionate personal and professional drama that hits both the high and low notes of an extraordinary career.
June 24, 2006
Angela Bassett shakes her tail feather with aplomb and pins down the singer's gestures with amazing precision. Top honours, however, belong to Fishburne's swaggering, savage portrayal of Ike.
May 20, 2003
The brilliant, mercurial portrayal of Ike Turner by Laurence Fishburne is what elevates What's Love Got to Do With It beyond the realm of run-of-the-mill biography.
April 16, 2003
Incendiary performances by Fishburne and Bassett.
Original Score: 4/5
January 1, 2000
A melodrama of starry-eyed love and black-eyed beatings, exhausting road tours and the singer's even harder road to self-realization, the movie contains its emotional highs and lows in the hermetically sealed bio-pic format.
January 1, 2000
You don't have to be a Tina Turner fan to appreciate this movie, but, regardless of your opinion of her music, What's Love Got To Do With It cannot fail to impart an impression of her courage and inner strength.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
January 1, 2000
A handsome woman with the lanky appeal of Katharine Hepburn, Bassett brays and bruises with equal effectiveness.
January 1, 2000
The movie makes us all want to stand up and cheer, "Shine on, Tina. Shine on."
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
January 1, 2000
It's a story of pain and courage, uncommonly honest and unflinching, and the next time I hear Tina Turner singing I will listen to the song in a whole new way.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4