Chadwick Boseman
Nelsan Ellis
Dan Aykroyd
Viola Davis
Keith Robinson
Octavia Spencer

Jez Butterworth
John-Henry Butterworth

139 mins.
Biography, Drama, Music
August 1, 2014

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug use, some strong language, and violent situations. (MPAA)

“Get on Up,” directed by Tate Taylor, who also directed “The Help,” is a biopic about James Brown that wants to be “Ray” when it grows up. It has every trick in the book: flashbacks and flashforwards, time lapse photography and slow motion, makeup and prosthetics, lip-synching, straight-to-camera monologues, and sequences that blend live action with sections that look like archival footage. (There’s sweat and chest hair, too.) The problem is that none of those things add any depth. This is a shell of a story.

One of its first scenes recounts Brown’s overreaction to someone having a bowel movement in his rental space called “Get on Up.” Yes, you read that right. The scene is comical, and that’s it. I was laughing at Chadwick Boseman’s Brown. I certainly wasn’t laughing with him. The makeup, the voice, the posture, and all the rest seemed cartoonish.

While Brown is an outlandish figure, that doesn’t mean that a film about him should be the same. The challenge is to find a way to make the audience take a larger-than-life personality seriously. This film fails on that count; at least, for me, it does. Even when a young Brown encounters a black man who’s been lynched, this film doesn’t land. It’s simply lightweight, through and through.

Also, it’s obvious that Boseman isn’t singing – obvious! His dancing may be the best and most authentic thing about this, and that’s not a compliment.

Furthermore, the structure’s confusing, instead of energizing. Many of the flashback scenes don’t give enough information. They seem forced into the film. They’re not integrated seamlessly into it. As a result, this film comes across as formless and surprisingly arrhythmic. (Even Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis can’t work their magic in those flashback scenes. They must’ve felt that they owed the director for their success in “The Help” or something. Davis does give us something in a scene toward the end of the film, though.)

None of the actors know what to do with this insipid and poorly written script. It’s a wonder that this film’s writers, brothers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, were two of the three co-writers of “Edge of Tomorrow.” They might need to work with Christopher McQuarrie, the other co-writer of that film and Oscar winner for “The Usual Suspects,” more often. They did a much better job as the writers of “Fair Game,” though. Hmmm.

“Get on Up” is closer to a cable TV movie than to a film suited for theatrical release – a cable TV movie with loads of polish. I do have one question, though: Where’s Al Sharpton?

Verdict: Somewhat Bad

About: (Source: getonup)