Sign 'o' the Times

A svelte jolt of everything that captures Prince at his most dazzling: the singing, the dancing, the multi-instrumental talent, the rapport with his band and those bolero-chic outfits. Read full review

Prince is an exciting entertainer, an equal opportunity employer-especially when it comes to talented women-and his act is a physical tour de force. It's the next best thing to attending one of his concerts and sitting near the stage. [20 Nov 1987, p.A]

Prince himself, passing through a spectrum of costumes and sexual roles, is never less than commanding, as performer, composer, and director. Read full review

Prince, whose ties to soul and jazz are clearer than ever before, whose willingness to embrace different musical forms seems to grow all the time, has never cast a stronger spell. Read full review

Musically, it's a matter of opinion, but from the sparse funk of the title tune to the bebop blow-out around Charlie Parker's Now's the Time, this guiltless grooving in Eden fizzes with brilliantly choreographed wit and invention. Read full review

Posing, pouting and pirouetting with androgynous abandon, pushing his guitar into ethereal, upper-register soundstorms and giving supple voice to songs of sensual and emotional free-fall in an anomic contemporary world, Prince provides music video addicts with a pure fix of visual and aural synchronicity. Read full review

After his hit-and-miss starring role in Purple Rain and the so-bad-it's-funny Under the Cherry Moon, Prince has come into his own as a film maker by doing what he does best: putting his consummate musical and performance talents into a vehicle that smokes from wire-to-wire. [29 Dec 1987, p.3D]

In Purple Rain, Prince found an answer in his own life, and provided intercuts to an autobiographical story. This time, he lets the music simply speak for itself. It's fun as far as it goes, but Purple Rain, of course, went further. Read full review

The cutting and camera work in Sign ‘O’ the Times are too intrusive, and the somewhat discordant songs worked better as a magnificent hodgepodge on the album. Still, this concert movie (which barely made it to theaters) is a feisty, engaging show. Read full review

Though it never quite transcends its status as a simple concert film, Prince's Sign o' the Times gives far greater range to his talent than his widely successful movie debut, the 1984 Purple Rain. [20 Nov 1987, p.A]

The music video tendency to make everything literal binds Prince's third film effort too tightly, and in all the wrong places. Rather than allowing the spacious set and the music and the interaction to communicate his boiling-energy concert persona, Prince spells out every little meaning, often plopping his songs into unnatural contexts just to make the grand statement. [20 Nov 1987, p.D5]

As a concert film, judged from the music, Sign O' the Times is near the top. As a movie -- carrying inside it the embryo of other movies -- it's not fully satisfying. But you sense it could be; however he stumbles, Prince gives you the impression he'll always, catlike, leap back. [20 Nov 1987, p.4]

The film as a whole is a little like one of those inflatable love dolls -- a reasonable facsimile, but nothing like the real thing. Read full review

Unfortunately, it only hints at the real fire the purple one brings to his shows. Read full review