Gets a 5/10 for the comprehensive collection of testimonies from brave survivors who came forward and told their stories. Whatever problems I have with the quality of the filmmaking here, the documentary miniseries will likely do more good than harm, thanks to these stories being put out there (because R. Kelly deserves to be held accountable for these crimes, and for the lives he's damaged, of course).
What isn't impressive is the way this is put together. While there are a variety of compelling topics covered, there's little attempt to sew them together in a way that creates meaning or coherency. It feels like a lot of research that's yet to be put together into a satisfying essay, to use a University metaphor.
The music and tacky editing is so overdone, and really, the whole presentation is awful. Sometimes it will show an image, cut to picture 1, cut back to the interview, show a very similar looking picture 2, do some more interview footage, and then show picture 1 again. And we're not supposed to notice you ran out of stuff to show? It's a nitpick, but it's similar for the music: they never seem to play more than 5 seconds of a song on the soundtrack at a time, making me think it was the producers being cheap when it came to proper licensing.
Then there's the cheapened storytelling due to the bad editing. We get an interview about how R Kelly proposed to one young girl by having her name on a banner flown behind a plane, with a man then parachuting out and delivering her the ring upon hitting the ground... yet the marriage itself was done in secret and parents didn't know? Okay, so why draw attention to the proposal with literally one of the most spectacular methods of marriage proposal? These two parts of the story clash and NOTHING is done to explain the contradictory nature of Kelly's proposal and then marriage ceremony.
On the topic of music again: all the music composed for this is so overdone and overbearing, and when paired with the boring visuals and cheap editing tricks that aim to make things "more suspenseful", it occasionally has the effect of actually weakening the stories of the survivors, as well as the information conveyed by various doctors and other experts who also find themselves being interviewed.
Look, it's hard, because this is a well-deserved deep dive into many crimes committed by a terrible person who hasn't yet had his comeuppance, but the execution is so lacking. If this had been done to the same standard as the OJ Made in America documentary series from 2016, it could be a genuinely great documentary.
As it stands, much of the info and personal stories are compelling and revealing, but the way it's shoddily put together just doesn't do the content (or the survivors!) justice, which makes for a frustrating watch. Maybe seeing the Lifetime logo at the start should've been a better received warning on my part.
I could see others giving it a higher rating just for the message and what it represents, while I could also see others giving it a lower rating because of just how badly it butchers the content with its editing, music, low budget, and lack of structure. For me, I'll take into account a bit of both, and give it a 5/10; right in the middle.
Whoever researched and/or conducted the interviews did a real good job, and I hope they can work with some editors or directors in the future that could do their work justice.
What isn't impressive is the way this is put together. While there are a variety of compelling topics covered, there's little attempt to sew them together in a way that creates meaning or coherency. It feels like a lot of research that's yet to be put together into a satisfying essay, to use a University metaphor.
The music and tacky editing is so overdone, and really, the whole presentation is awful. Sometimes it will show an image, cut to picture 1, cut back to the interview, show a very similar looking picture 2, do some more interview footage, and then show picture 1 again. And we're not supposed to notice you ran out of stuff to show? It's a nitpick, but it's similar for the music: they never seem to play more than 5 seconds of a song on the soundtrack at a time, making me think it was the producers being cheap when it came to proper licensing.
Then there's the cheapened storytelling due to the bad editing. We get an interview about how R Kelly proposed to one young girl by having her name on a banner flown behind a plane, with a man then parachuting out and delivering her the ring upon hitting the ground... yet the marriage itself was done in secret and parents didn't know? Okay, so why draw attention to the proposal with literally one of the most spectacular methods of marriage proposal? These two parts of the story clash and NOTHING is done to explain the contradictory nature of Kelly's proposal and then marriage ceremony.
On the topic of music again: all the music composed for this is so overdone and overbearing, and when paired with the boring visuals and cheap editing tricks that aim to make things "more suspenseful", it occasionally has the effect of actually weakening the stories of the survivors, as well as the information conveyed by various doctors and other experts who also find themselves being interviewed.
Look, it's hard, because this is a well-deserved deep dive into many crimes committed by a terrible person who hasn't yet had his comeuppance, but the execution is so lacking. If this had been done to the same standard as the OJ Made in America documentary series from 2016, it could be a genuinely great documentary.
As it stands, much of the info and personal stories are compelling and revealing, but the way it's shoddily put together just doesn't do the content (or the survivors!) justice, which makes for a frustrating watch. Maybe seeing the Lifetime logo at the start should've been a better received warning on my part.
I could see others giving it a higher rating just for the message and what it represents, while I could also see others giving it a lower rating because of just how badly it butchers the content with its editing, music, low budget, and lack of structure. For me, I'll take into account a bit of both, and give it a 5/10; right in the middle.
Whoever researched and/or conducted the interviews did a real good job, and I hope they can work with some editors or directors in the future that could do their work justice.