Man did I mess up here! A little while back I reviewed the 2024 The Color Purple which is a musical and one of the best musicals I have ever seen! That movie blew me away with how brutal, but also beautiful the story was, the amazing performances from the actors, and just the whole style and vibe of the movie, in general, clicked with me and I was mesmerized while I was watching it!
How to Download The Color Purple (1985)
The Color Purple was released on December 18, 1985. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
So how did I mess up? I talked in my other review about how my wife kind of dragged me to see The Color Purple and that I had very little interest and was 100 percent ignorant of the original. Well, after loving the musical so much, my wife got me to watch the Steven Spielberg 1985 original and I enjoyed it…… but!
Now, I am probably going to anger a lot of people here, but at the end of the day, this is my opinion. I enjoyed the musical version more than I did the original version. Hey, this original is amazing, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Margaret Avery are all fantastic and 100 percent got me sucked into this world and made me feel all the heartbreak and horror that poor Cecile felt.
However, I think I really needed to have seen the original before I saw the remake/musical so I could have appreciated it more if that makes sense. The story was already familiar to me here, the heartbreak of poor Cecile and the brutal abuse that she suffered at the hands of her father and Mister still rocked me to the core. Actually, I love Danny Glover and I have never seen him in a role like this in all the years I have enjoyed his work and it was truly shocking stuff.
Comparing the Original to the Musical
Some people can take an original movie and a remake as their own thing, but I have always had trouble doing that, check out my reviews of Total Recall and Point Break to see what I mean Yet, what we have here with The Color Purple is very interesting as I cannot think of a movie/movies where I watched a remake before seeing the original, but then watched the original a fairly short time after.
With the 2024 The Color Purple being such a brutal story, it really stuck with me and as I was watching this original, I pretty much knew at least 90 percent of what was happening. If anything, it made me appreciate just how authentic the 2024 musical was, keeping the core of the story, but adding in those amazing songs and performances.
Final Thoughts on Both Versions
My wife loved the musical, but she said that she feels the original is better. For me, I love both of these movies and I am going to give them both the same score. Yet, if you were to ask me which The Color Purple I liked better, I am pretty confident that I am always going to say the 2024 musical. To be honest, I do feel that the reason for this is that was the one I saw first so the story hit me much harder. I really wish that I had seen this years before I saw the musical as I am sure I would have so much more appreciation for it.
