Flashback, flash forward, flash sideways, flash circular. Cut, paste, repeat. Once you have that unnecessary formula for a movie, place each section in non chronological order and leave out the follow up. And, cut! You have a biopic film about one of the greatest performers, song writers and singers ever. Confused yet? Well I think most would agree that you should be. It's a must that a movie be made featuring the Godfather of Soul, as he had some of the greatest songs of our time. They fell short with this one, maybe because you can always compare to Walk the Line, and Ray, which were made using bits of the same formula but left out the placement mess and third person camera talk. Boseman did a pretty good job of the moves and speech of James Brown, but was so raspy most times that you couldn't even understand him. He had a hard time opening his mouth to actually get the dialogue out and came off as a huge dick! Brown had a larger than life personality and it was caught by only a fraction throughout this 2 1/2 hour movie. There are also so many great songs performed by this singer and they only showed very small parts of his performances that left you wanting so much more. The story of his life is great and although I like the mixed time period writing, this was way over the top. For instance when he finally sees his mother again after 20 years was so underwhelming it made no sense creating who he really was. I wanted so much more from this and would rate it just a little higher than the Hendrix movie. Not impressed, but would say its worth a watch just to learn more about the life of the Hardest Working Man In Show Business.
FYI: Produced by Mick Jagger who Brown shrugged off in real life when they first met.
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