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I Wanna Dance with Somebody

The 100 Most Anticipated Movies of 2022

2022

Kasi Lemmons

Naomi Ackie, Ashton Sanders, Stanley Tucci, Clarke Peters ...

5.8

1,540

Drama The celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time. Tracking her journey from obscurity to musical super stardom.

	Media	Author	Review
		David Fear Rolling Stone	"The official biopic of the late, great singer gives us the hits, the highs and the lows — but it really just wants to be the greatest love letter of all"
		David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"Unlike most musical biopics, which tend to hurtle through frustrating fragments of the hits that leave you wanting more, this one serves up many generous performance interludes"
		Brian Truitt USA Today	"A cursory examination of Houston’s life story with a pretty great soundtrack (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"Naomi Ackie is excellent in the title role and the film delivers all the singer’s big hits, but it swerves the difficult questions (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Owen Gleiberman Variety	"Naomi Ackie captures Whitney Houston's incandescence in Kasi Lemmons' bracing biopic."
		Mike Shutt SlashFilm	"Whitney Houston deserves better than this (...) This is just another run-of-the-mill, dramatically limp music biopic meant to be pure brand management"
		Tim Grierson Screendaily	"'I Wanna Dance’s' fairly pedestrian approach can’t fully tamp down the resonance of Houston’s vocals"
		David Ehrlich IndieWire	"Su construcción abyectamente perezosa no es suficiente para disminuir la enérgica diversión de su reparto (...) Overstuffed and underwritten"
		Kristy Puchko Mashable	"This radiant movie sing in celebration of a bold woman who wouldn't let her voice be"
		Valerie Complex Deadline	"After seeing 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody', it's clear her story isn't adaptable for the standard feature film structure (...) Houston's life story deserves more time and development to peel back the layers of her experiences"
		James Mottram Radio Times	"This biopic celebrates Whitney's generational talent, rather than dwelling on the darkness (...) While the film is conventionally told it’s nevertheless a respectful take
		Matthew Huff AV Club	"Whitney Houston's songs are as catchy as ever, but Kasi Lemmons' film succumbs to familiar music biopic pitfalls without adding much to the singer's legacy"
		Carlos Aguilar The Wrap	"Whitney Houston biopic plays the hits, but still manages to surprise (...) Naomi Ackie shines in her performance of the songstress in a film that doesn’t shy away from the singer’s bisexuality"
		Siddhant Adlakha IGN	"Despite director Kasi Lemmons’ best efforts (which are sometimes noticeable), it reduces Houston to just another interchangeable name and face with nothing truly special about her."
		Richard Lawson Vanity Fair	"At least there is the music to return to, again and again (...) But the story behind the songs probably deserves more, and better"
		Katie Walsh Los Angeles Times	"Sadly, the disappointing 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' doesn’t let Whitney rest in peace"
		Kelechi Ehenulo Empire	"In what could have been a definitive tribute to Whitney Houston’s career, surface-level execution means her story is not quite done justice. But Naomi Ackie's performance shines above everything else (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Thomas Floyd The Washington Post	"Whitney Houston gets a bland biopic (...) Watching the pop songstress’s life story is like listening to a greatest hits album, with just as little narrative coherence (...) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"
		John Serba Decider	"[It] is dutiful at best, but it never pops"
		Eric Henderson Slant	"Though Ackie imparts as much humanity as she can muster, this Whitney is a cypher, neither gay nor straight, neither black nor white—a most utilitarian 'every woman' (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"
		Simon Thompson The Playlist	"A respectful, fitting, and far more honest account of what the artist nicknamed 'The Voice' gave us, it’s a biopic that is up there with 'Rocketman', 'Ray', and 'What’s Love Got to Do with It'"
		Chase Hutchinson Collider	"Whitney Houston will forever be remembered as a singular talent, but the emotionally inert 'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' will not"
		Jenny Nulf Austin Chronicle	"[It] is so stale it might as well have been shoved directly onto a streaming platform to wither away forgotten (...) Rating: ★½ (out of 5)"
		Tim Robey Telegraph	"[It] gets Whitney Houston’s voice – but loses her soul (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Nick Levine NME	"[It] isn’t as illuminating as it could be, but it still feels like a fitting tribute to a brave and complicated artist with a genuinely incredible gift (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times	"It doesn’t dig too deep but consistently entertains"
		Brittany Witherspoon Screen Rant	"It celebrates the star that captured the hearts of many fans around the world. And through a great performance by Ackie, this film has the ability to do the same, even if it sticks to genre rules (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Paula Akpan Time Out	"Naomi Ackie is stellar in a biopic that’s reticent rather than revelatory (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"

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