In early 2015 I heard that this movie was going to be released in August and I knew I had to see it as soon as it came out. This group was widely influential when they first came out and they really did change the face of music forever. I love how the movie was released in theaters 27 years after (almost the exact date) as N.W.A.’s album Straight Outta Compton.
I grew up with my brother listening to N.W.A., so I have an appreciation for this music (80s & 90s rap); especially compared to the crap rap we have today. I will admit that the only people I knew were Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy E, but considering the movie mainly focused on those 3, I didn’t feel too out of the loop.
Going into it, I had no idea it was well over 2 hours long, so I’m pretty sure that at the 1:50 mark, I started looking at my watch to see when it would end. There were several parts that could have been left out and it wouldn’t have affected the storyline in anyway (the most obvious was being everything to do with Dr. Dre’s brother). On the flipside, I do think that the movie should have added more on Tupac and Snoop Dogg.
I really liked all the actors picked; not because most of them looked like the people they were portraying but because for people that I’ve never heard of before, they did a fantastic job! O’Shea Jackson Jr. was on point when it came to impersonating his dad Ice Cube.
When it comes to the soundtrack (Compton by Dr. Dre), I was really hoping that it would be the next album I buy, but that wasn’t the case. I liked hearing the old N.W.A. songs while watching the movie, but I thought the new songs in the soundtrack would be just as memorable.
I loved how this movie showed the racism the group faced; it was raw and unapologetic. Sadly, this issue is still relevant to this day.
It was a solid movie on all aspects.
