The Five Things We Took Away from ‘Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B’

Nov 15, 2014 10:03 pm ET

Saturday night saw the premiere of the latest addition to the Lifetime-movie canon, “Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B.” This biopic of the 1990s superstar, whose life was cut short at the age of 22 in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, had been plagued with controversy since production on the film was first announced.

Zendaya Coleman, who was originally tapped to portray the “If Your Girl Only Knew” singer, dropped out of the project back in June. In addition, the authenticity of the movie was compromised due to Aaliyah’s family’s refusal to give Lifetime clearance to use her music. Also not helping matters was the stigma of “the Lifetime treatment,” meaning that the cable network doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to biopics that are respectful of the subject matter (see: “Liz & Dick, ” “The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story ” and “The Brittany Murphy Story “).

The final result was a bland, non-insightful look into Aaliyah’s life and career that, while managing to avoid any majorly salacious drama (the R. Kelly romance will be covered below), unfortunately ended up stripping most of the heart, soul and reverence that the late singer-actress deserved.

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