Review Revue: Critics React To Eminem & Rihanna’s “Love The Way You Lie” Video
Dominic Monaghan and Megan Fox fight, Rihanna broods and Eminem burns in the emotionally-charged “Love The Way You Lie” music video. So we were curious to find out just what the Internet thought of the Joseph Kahn-directed clip, which revolves around an unhealthy, abusive relationship (and doesn’t shy away from visual depictions of the violence stemming from it). Head below to see if critics were feeling the fire.
:: Entertainment Weekly‘s Music Mix notes that “Love The Way You Lie” is “a great track, and a star-powered video.” However, they go on to ponder, “…does it take responsibility for its dramatization of domestic violence? And knowing all we know about Rihanna’s personal life (and Em’s), is this collision of reality and fame-world cleansing or just awkward?”
:: MTV News points out that actor Dominic Monaghan recently said, “I think we tried as hard as we could to not glorify the violence, to try and explain that this was a relationship that is by no means ideal and a relationship that probably should have ended a lot sooner than it did.”
:: The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog jokes, “Okay, so maybe having this Eminem-Rihanna video on Heat Vision is stretch but what can we say? We like Dominic Monaghan, who was in Lost, Lord of the Rings and Wolverine. Oh, yeah, it’s got some girl called Megan Fox in it, too.”
:: Taking a different approach, The Prophet Blog praises the man behind the lens by writing, “It’s not the best video ever made, but it’s very appropriate for the song, and Kahn deserves a pat on the back for the beautiful style and visual effects used. He’s a fantastic director, and whenever you see his name attached to something, you at least know that it’s not gonna suck.”
:: Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy declares, “The age of the event video is clearly not completely over… Everything about the new video seemed better fit for the big screen than the TV screen, from the star appearances by Fox and Monaghan, to the dramatic sequences of domestic violence.”
:: Finally, Hecklerspray takes the comedic approach with a visual decoding of Fox and Monaghan’s scenes from the video. Says the site, “Incidentally, if anyone was wondering where Eminem is while this nightmare is playing out, he’s in a field. Again, he’s in a field.”