Why I Saw This Movie
This was part of the inflight entertainment options on a airplane flight.
Positives
* A great soundtrack (naturally)
* The lip syncing is a bit off in some scenes, but generally a good job of showing how dynamic and energetic James Brown was on stage.
Negatives
* A completely by-the-numbers Hollywood rock star biopic--if you've ever seen any Hollywood rock star biopics before, there's absolutely nothing new here.
* Related to the above, like all Hollywood rock star biopics, it tends toward the sappy and melodramatic
* No real script or story to speak of, just a collection of random flashbacks.
The Review
Well, they obviously didn't spend any time writing the script for this movie. "Just throw some random scenes together" they must have said, "standard biopic stuff, troubled childhood, rise to fame, these things just write themselves. Besides, the music is what will carry the movie anyway. Who cares about the script?"
And the thing is: they were kind of right--the music does carry a lot of this movie, and almost makes it watchable just by the music. But no points for the movie itself.
Rating :
1 out of 10 stars (The music was kind of enough to make this movie watchable, but I'm reluctant to give the movie too much credit for just using James Brown's old music.)
Links
Mostly in agreement with the avclub's review of this movie HERE. (Update: also liked Film Drunk's review HERE.)
Link of the Day
The Imperial Grand Strategy
Caveat: I watched this film on the plane on a long international flight, and I'm usually in a bad mood when I watch movies on planes, so I tend to be a bit harsher on them than I ordinarily would be. If I had seen this movie in my living room, I might have been more generous to it.
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