‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ Reviews Are Mostly Negative

I couldn’t quite figure out why Sony had been hiding “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” from critics. The buzz hadn’t been that bad.

Reactions had trickled in from its NYC screening last week: Roger Friedman, Owen Gleiberman, CNN, Edward Douglas and others quite liked it. The reaction I gathered from a test-screening back in the summer was also semi-positive.

Now that the review embargo has lifted today, this Whitney Houston biopic will clearly not save the movie year, no, far from it, it looks like a musical biopic in the same vein as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but with far less Oscar prospects.

Negative reviews from the likes of USA Today, IGN, IndieWire, AV Club, Screen, Slash Film, and Flickering Myth have popped up online … Lone wolves THR and The Guardian have given it semi-positive writeups.

It all amounts to a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes.