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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

As has been our practice over the past years, Diane and I went to the movie on Essex and left sometime later with the same opinion about this film; it was about a remarkable talent. I was not sure upon entering the cinema if my impression, Bobby Brown was responsible for the drug addiction that killed her was correct. We both thought that the film was fair; however, we both felt that the movie play ed too much on the negatives of her addiction. About mid-way through the film, the viewer was submerged by the negatives. I did, however, go from thinking that Brown should die for his actions in denying the world's greatest singer a continued life. Preferably, after the film, We saw that Whitney virtually suicided and Brown greased the slide because she did most of it herself from an age before she even knew him.Diane and I thought the movie was absorbing with a little too much emphasis on the downward towards the peak of her career. See it if you were a fan and who couldn't be a fan.

I saw the trailer for this documentary film, I knew I was definitely going to go to the cinema to see it when I was able to, I am a very big fan of the singer, and I was fascinated to see the story of her life, directed by Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland, Life in a Day). Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born 9 August 1963, this film depicts the life and career of the American singer and actress, charting her stratospheric rise to fame. The film is made up of archive footage, from Whitney's television appearances, and never-before-seen home video footage from her family and friends, stills from newspaper and magazine articles, and interviews from her family, friends and colleagues. Whitney's family had a history of singing, including her mother Cissy Houston, and she is first cousin of singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick. Whitney herself started singing in a gospel choir, then she performed as a soloist in nightclubs, she had a short stint in fashion modelling, before returning to singing and being offered numerous record deals. Whitney turned down many of them, eventually agreeing to sign a contract with Arista Records, headed by Clive Davis, she made her debut television appearance on The Merv Griffin Show in 1985. Her breakout song was "Saving All My Love for You", which went straight to number one in the US and the UK, she followed with other big hits like "How Will I Know" and "The Greatest Love of All". Whitney was fast becoming a superstar, and followed with her second album, which included hits "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)", "Didn't We Almost Have It All", "So Emotional", and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go", she also performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV at Tampa Stadium. During this time, she met R&B singer Bobby Brown, they married a couple of years later, then she got her opportunity to become an actress, starring alongside Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard, which included the song, her most successful in history, "I Will Always Love You". Of course during this time she was also introduced to drugs, she tried and eventually became addicted alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and pills, and there were many tabloid scandals about the marriage to Bobby Brown, including his various arrests, and reports of him beating Whitney, they divorced in 2007. Whitney did have success with her next albums, including further hits like "It's Not Right But It's Okay" and "My Love Is Your Love", but her behaviour, addictions, many cancelled appearances and tours were causing her career to go downwards. She attempted a comeback, with varied success, but her live performances did not go down well with fans, with her singing being often off-key, she eventually went to rehab, and after returning patched things up with her family, including daughter Bobbi Kristina, and also returned to acting in a remake of Sparkle. Throughout the film, in various archive clips and performances, you can tell that Whitney struggled with her personal demons and addictions, displaying "dishevelled" and "erratic" behaviour, and struggling as a wife and mother. On 11 February 2012, Whitney was found dead in a suite at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, submerged in the bathtub, her death was caused by drowning and the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use", she was aged 48. Three years later, her daughter Bobbi Kristina was also found unconscious in a bathtub, she was put into an induced coma, she died in hospice care on 26 July 2015, at the age of 22. With contributions from Bobby Brown, Cissy Houston, Clive Davis, Gary Houston, L.A. Reid, Mary Jones and Kevin Costner. There are things I found out about Whitney I never would have known about, including her bisexuality, and a lesbian relationship with her best friend Robyn Crawford. It is difficult to watch when the footage shows Whitney acting strangely under the influence of drugs, but you cannot deny she was an incredible talent, her singing voice is amazing, and she still holds the records as one of the best-selling music artists of all time, it may be a bit up and down with its editing and approach to particular subjects, but it is a most interesting biographical music documentary. Good!

I wasn't a huge fan of Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal's Whitney: Can I Be Me (2017). The film was built on the foundation of never-before-seen backstage footage from Houston's World Tour 1999, but I felt the narrative was poorly constructed, jumping from her divorce from Bobby Brown in 2007 to her death in 2012 with very little detail on what happened in those five years. This had the effect of making the last part of the documentary feel rushed and incomplete. I went into it not knowing a huge amount about Whitney Houston (apart from the obvious bits and pieces that everyone knows), and I came out still not knowing a huge amount about her.Kevin Macdonald's Whitney covers almost identical terrain as Broomfield and Dolezal, with many of the same interviewees appearing in both films, and much of the same factual information presenting itself (Houston tried drugs long before becoming a celebrity; she was criticised as "acting white" and selling out her culture by many black people, and was booed at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards (where her single "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" was nominated for Best R&B/Urban Contemporary Single - Female"); she was hounded with questions regarding her sexuality for much of her life, etc). One hugely important absence from both films, of course, is Robyn Crawford, Whitney's one time best friend, road manager, and probable lover, who was pretty much the only person in Houston's life who seemed to tell her what was really what, as opposed to what she wanted to hear, and have Houston's best interests at heart. Apart from a beautiful obituary for Esquire (on whose editorial staff Crawford's wife works), Crawford has maintained a dignified silence since Houston died, and neither Broomfield and Dolezal nor Macdonald were able to persuade her to speak on camera. This leaves a sizeable lacuna in the narratives of both films, as it is fairly unlikely anyone will really get to the core of who Houston was until (or indeed if) Crawford decides to tell her own story. As a side note, one interesting figure who didn't appear in Can I Be Me, but who does unexpectedly pop up in Whitney is Clive Davis, president of Arista Records, and the man who signed Houston to her first record deal.For all their similarities, however, I found Macdonald's film superior to Can I Be Me. Whitney has two major, and interconnected, advantages over the earlier film. Can I Be Me is more concerned with facts, and probably covers more "Did you know" moments; for example, the idea to open "I Will Always Love You" capella style was actually Kevin Costner's (however, having said that, Macdonald does manage to squeeze in a couple of not especially well known moments of his own; for example, Houston's haunting rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the 1991 Super Bowl (where she had her bandleader and arranger Rickey Minor take the radical step of altering the time signature from a 3/4 to a 4/4) was completely unrehearsed, and the revelations regarding Dee Dee Warwick are shocking to say the least). However, what Macdonald does much better than Broomfield and Dolezal is that, on several occasions, he takes time out from the narrative to simply let the audience hear her sing. Probably because of this, his film is considerably more emotive. I was very moved by it on a couple of occasions; I don't remember being moved by Can I Be Me at all. One scene in particular I found very upsetting recalls that horrific scene in Asif Kapadia's Amy (2015) (2015) where Amy Winehouse is performing in Serbia a month before she died. In Whitney, it's footage from her Nothing But Love World Tour 2010, as she tries and completely fails to sing "I Will Always Love You" in Newcastle. The crowd is respectful enough, but given that so much of the documentary is simply about her voice, seeing her like this is very sad, as with her hoarse voice, she can barely stay in tune, let alone hit the high notes, sounding more like someone doing a bad karaoke rendition than one of the greatest singers of all time.Another very well handled part of the documentary's narrative is its coverage of what could be termed "mainstream media complicity" in her suffering. Look, Whitney Houston was a drug addict and a terrible mother, who was indirectly responsible for Bobbi Kristina Brown's death, insofar as she gave her child no stability, and introduced her to a world of substance abuse. Nobody is arguing anything different. But she was also a person, suffering deeply, in public, and very few people did, or even tried to do, anything to help her. The film presents a 2002 sketch from Saturday Night Live (1975) with Maya Rudolph as Whitney, in which she addresses the infamous Diane Sawyer "crack is whack" interview, and a scene from a 2005 episode of American Dad! (2005), in which an emaciated Whitney "sings for crack" in the Smith living-room. These clips were probably funny at the time, but aren't especially funny now, and they serve to highlight one of the most bizarre paradoxes of our celebrity obsessed society; we love to build people up and up and up, but, at some arbitrary point in time, we decide they've become too popular, too successful, too talented, so we do anything to pull them down, and when something goes wrong in their lives, really catastrophically wrong, our response as a society is not empathy, kindness, or understanding, but scorn, derision, and sarcasm. What a strange world we've made.7/10

Whitney Houston. Everyone and their dog has heard of a song by this enigmatic lass. The only artist to garner seven consecutive US number one singles and release the best selling single for a female artist of all time. She has broken more records than a lunatic swinging a bat at a jukebox. Yet, with such early fame, her later life was marred with scandals, tainted by drug accessibility and succumbed to an inevitable tragedy. Macdonald's documentary depicts the chaotic world that stardom introduces whilst also retaining a sense of family. Interviews with family members, close friends and colleagues allows a personable quality to shine through this deeply tragic documentary. Tackling broad subject matters of racial segregation and activism during the 80s, the impact of recreational drug usage and never before seen allegations of sexual abuse at a young age. Suffice to say, Houston suffered personal struggles and this film primarily hones in on her downfall. Still retaining her angelic persona, the documentary insinuates that it was her external environment that corrupted her. Similarly to Kapadia's documentary 'Amy', it portrays fame as a disease where young stars are more susceptible to its negativity. The relentless second half drains you on an emotional level as you empathically watch this beautiful talent degrade, especially the phone recording of her 'Nothing But Love' comeback tour. It's not all doom and gloom, the first third does feel hearty and establishes a blossoming strong family bond as we nostalgically glance back at various high points in her short life. 'The Bodyguard', her interpretation of "The Star Spangled Banner" and her numerous number one singles. Alas, you can't help but feel that this overstuffed documentary focuses too much on her ruination. Contaminating a beautiful soul. It's an eye-opening perspective for fans and fledglings (I was the latter) that both informs and occasionally succumbs to emotional exploitation. Powerfully charged nonetheless.