Since Eminem has now officially been declared the new Elvis it is imperative that he conquers the film world before he hits the weight gain 3000, bulks up to the size of Jabba the Hutt and slithers back on stage in a day glo jumpsuit. So, has Marshall been able to create quality where in the arena where only quantity mattered to the king?
8 Mile is a fairly standard story of the working class kid who follows his dreams, gets his shot and has it all come true. Essentially it is Rocky with a hip-hop soundtrack and verbal punches, in fact you can hum the Ricky theme tune over the music on virtually any part of 8 Mile. Often this unreservedly improves the scene in question.
Thankfully Eminem manages to skillfully project a serious cinematic persona of himself without hamming it up like a butchers front window. However Marshall's adoption of the method robs the film of the showboating bravado and humour that so distinguishes his music, and the film often looks po-faced in it's absence. The light hearted and joyful touches that inspired the far superior A Beautiful Mind and Wonder Boys are lacking, so much so that you wonder whether producer Brian Glazer and director Curtis Hanson failed to see the funny side of hip-hop entirely.
8 Mile is perfectly good uplifting TV movie fare, but it fails to engage the emotions deeply enough to live up to it's cinematic peer group. Eminem has proved he can act and hip hop has shown it can shed the bling and show it's maturity on the big screen but unless both develop from this base they should stick to the day job.