This is a fantastic film....if you have the sensibilities to appreciate it. This movie is very very defined by Prince. Rightly so, too, as he is the director and star. To really appreciate this film, though, you have to be able to delve into and appreciate Prince's eccentricities. Prince is absolutely a brilliant artist, but it takes more than liking his music to like this movie. He has a singular sense of humor, and it comes through loud and clear. This is one of the most quotable movies of all time (though sadly you can't quote it because few people have seen the film), and Prince and Jerome both have impeccable comedic timing. If you like off-the-wall humor with a very stylistic backdrop you should love "Under the Cherry Moon".

This campy but well-written and well-played film was hated when it came out. I thought I was the only one who liked it! But Prince and Jerome Benton are a great team with overtones of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Prince's character may be a bit ridiculous, a foppish, mugging gigolo in France, but he plays it with such conviction that he makes it work. Maybe it works so well because the movie never takes itself too seriously and doesn't pretend to make sense. It has a feel like "Some Like it Hot" - good-natured fantasy - and the black and white accentuates this retro cool. Like other viewers, I've always found I could watch this movie again and again. It's like "Rocky Horror" that way.

I watched "Under the Cherry Moon" last night for the first ever time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm surprised it has such bad reviews and is considered such a turkey by most critics. I guess at the time most people wanted Prince to come out with another "Purple Rain" type movie. Prince is a great physical comedian in this movie, I was surprised just how much as was laughing throughout it at his and Jerome Benton's antics. Prince clearly is having a whale of a time here - and his over-the-top narcissism throughout is clearly meant as tongue-in-cheek. This is one of those quirky, odd, entertaining, screwball movies that has a real cult feeling to it, and definitely major rewatchability factor. Prince did a very good job directing this at the age of 27 (which I also wasn't expecting) and uses the songs off his "Parade" LP to excellent effect at the right moments and the right scenes. I love the "Girls and Boys" sequence with everyone doing that 80s arm-waving dance that Prince starts off on the piano. Kristin Scott Thomas is absolutely lovely in it - long time to go before her big break in "The English Patient". Steven Berkoff plays a similar villain that he did a few years earlier in "Beverly Hills Cop". Love the scene where Prince is trying to make it up with Scott-Thomas, and he does this by sitting in total silence at the back of his car with his shades on. Will have to try that technique someday. Shame, Jerome and Prince could've ended up being the modern-day screwball farce pair, if they'd made more films together.

I really enjoyed this movie. It is on my list of most thought-provoking movies. From my experience, I believe that a lot of people just don't think to watch it, for whatever reason they have. It has Prince in it... or it's in black and white... or it has Prince in it... or it just isn't 'main stream' enough... or it has Prince in it. Whatever the reason it is most often a case of judging it before they saw it. If they ever saw it at all.I am a big fan of Prince. I have been since I was a teenager. I suppose that is why I first watched it. But after seeing it and seeing through it to the point behind the movie, I was hooked. I was a fan. There is emotion and a poignant point behind each scene.If you watch it and see it deeper than the average person simply looking for a way to waste an hour an a half you'll find a movie that actually makes you feel for the characters as if they were your friends... or you may at least wish they were.And that kiss... Well, if you watched the movie... you know the one. It is, in my opinion, one of the best movie kisses I've ever seen.