Get on Up Poster

Get on Up (2014)

Biography | Music 
Rayting:   6.9/10 22.8K votes
Country: UK | USA
Language: English
Release date: 1 August 2014

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bloodclay 2 August 2014

"Get on Up" is the type of movie that will probably only appeal to insomniacs. When they've tried every method of getting to sleep, and it's playing at 3 AM on HBO, it just may be their only solution. But oddly enough, on the surface, it seems to have all the right ingredients. With Chadwick Boseman fresh off last year's "42" heading the cast as James Brown, along with director Tate Taylor from "The Help" fame, you would think there isn't much that could go wrong. But unfortunately, there's plenty.

Jumping back and forth from Brown's childhood to his days in absolute fame, it never quite settles. In some moments it wants to be a dark and gritty drama showing his often scary battles with his father, and in others a lively musical featuring the character directly interacting with the camera and talking to the audience throughout.

Obviously deriving from movies like "Dreamgirls" and "Ray", it isn't able to keep a steady (or original) tone that will keep the audience's attention. There's the occasional quick editing trick that may add flare for a second, but none of it is sustained, and it leaves a bland taste in the viewer's mouth.

One of the only redeeming qualities is Boseman's interesting performance, but after two hours of referring to himself in third person, his charm wears off as well. Not to mention the ghastly makeup to show his age, and the unfunny jokes that seem to be slipped in during the most inappropriate moments.

At it's core, it's meant to be a soundtrack, not a film. The characters have no room to be fleshed out properly in the PG-13 atmosphere and the end product feels watered-down and uneven.

swellframe17 5 August 2014

Fmovies: James Brown was a unique musician. He was the Godfather of Soul and inspired many musicians. He had hits like "Get Up Offa That Thing" and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." Tate Taylor (who did a wonderful job adapting "The Help") takes on Brown's story in "Get On Up" and tries to cram almost all of Brown's life story in a little over 2 hours. Taylor tries to make the film as bold and sporadic as Brown was by jumping around in time and breaking the fourth wall, but I don't think it worked.

In the first 15 minutes, we jump around to 3 different time periods, but it doesn't feel like it has much purpose for the juxtaposition of these time lines. We have to follow all these different story lines that don't always connect. A character says he's leaving Brown in one scene and by the next scene, the character is with Brown again like nothing happened. The lack of chronological flow makes it harder to appreciate what Brown did for his time, like the concert after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death. It can be confusing and I think it could have stronger moments if it was done chronologically. The film didn't hook me within the first half hour and all the jumping around in time made the film feel never ending.

The breaking of the fourth wall isn't used consistently and well enough to make it useful. It took a long time for the film to establish that breaking the fourth wall was going to be apart of the film. I think it's better when a film starts with breaking the fourth wall instead of waiting 20 minutes to introduce it. It seemed like Taylor was trying to be like Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" or Woody Allen's "Annie Hall," but I don't think it worked as well with "Get On Up." I admire how the film was trying to break the music biopic formula. However, I don't think it did it well.

"Get On Up" does have interesting juxtapositions when it merges Brown's older life with his younger self, but Brown is the only one we get to focus on and learn anything about. There is a large cast that surrounds him with great actors like Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. These actors do the best they can, but the film doesn't give them enough time and they feel flat and one-dimensional. It's hard to connect with any of the supporting characters and Brown is a narcissistic jerk that you don't really want to connect with. Chadwick Boseman does a really good job showing all of Brown's charms and flaws, but everything around his performance feels weak.

Taylor's "Get On Up" tries to be a lot of different things, but it doesn't juggle them well. Brown went through so much in his life that it may have been better to focus on one of these important moments than to throw them all together. What we get is a slow moving and messy film that doesn't always add up to what it could have been. The film ends strongly with a montage that sums up Brown well and a song, but the two hours we go through to get there doesn't feel worth it.

EmmaDinkins 3 August 2014

This film is long overdue, although it seemed to me that there was so much more content excluded from the storyline. If a film maker chooses to focus on the artistry and creativity that came forth from an individual then it is best not to delve too deeply into the demons, which for James Brown (Chadwick Boseman) were much bigger than portrayed in this film. I wasn't a fan of the style of filmmaking applied to this tale, I would have preferred a more linear approach to the historical events that shaped Mr. Brown's personality. Starting a story with some event that takes place at the end is not that unusual, but there was so much jumping back and forth from childhood to young adult to the 'Godfather of Soul' that it was hard to connect to the story initially. Then there were the soliloquies, I didn't quite fathom why they were needed since they really did not add much to the storytelling other than try to place the audience inside of James' head. This story of the lifelong friendship of James and Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis) was interesting and engaging, but nothing about this film was more entertaining than the music. I tried to be a good moviegoer so I didn't song along aloud, but it was almost impossible to just sit without moving to Caldonia and Get on Up. I couldn't help but reminisce as Please, Please, Please and This is a Man's World permeated the crowded theater. And yes, I fought back the tears during Try Me. The story did include a pivotal encounter with Little Richard (Brandon Smith) and the events that led to Bootsy Collins becoming a band member, but there were other musical icons that touched his life that were not mentioned. I guess the movie would have been too long to cover everyone. Mr. Boseman did a fine job of mimicking the enigmatic dance moves of Mr. Brown and his lip-syncing was palpable, but I just wasn't fully convinced with the vocal recreation. James Brown had a distinctive style of speech that few have been able to capture. Eddie Murphy did it with his comic genius on SNL with Hot tub, but he too may have fallen short if he was expected to maintain the sometimes indistinguishable speak throughout a feature film. I enjoyed this film, I saw it with my mother who is 74 and she loved it. The first concert that I ever attended was a James Brown concert. You don't know at the time that when you're just out for some entertainment, you're actually in the presence of greatness and that you are a part of historic events.

ghost_dog86 5 August 2014

Get on Up fmovies. Chadwick Boseman is turning into the king of tame African America biopics. Not to say that his performance wasn't astonishing; capturing everything from James Brown's raspy, sometimes undecipherable, Southern twang, to his often mimicked but never duplicated dance moves, Boseman absolutely nails it, giving an Oscar worthy performance. That said, it's the choppy, redundant and consistently PG-13 direction from Tate Taylor (The Help) and the overall lack of emotional connection that had my enjoyment level taking a nosedive a little after the first hour.

First off, why was a movie chronicling the life of James Brown rated PG-13?! "Get on Up" alludes to Brown's history with drug abuse, but never really goes into it. There is one scene of him striking one of his wives, but it never really goes into his womanizing or issues with spousal abuse. There is one scene where we see Brown as a boy having a minor brush with the realities of the segregated South, but we never really see any of his early physical hardships. All of this amounts to a PG-13 film about a rated R character.

This tameness is only made worse by the strange lack of emotional connection throughout. I mean, bad stuff does happen, but since there are only two or three sequences which elicit a true emotional connection, if you aren't already familiar with Brown's history, hardly any of the would-be powerful/tragic moments will resonate. In other words, if you enjoyed this movie, it's either because you went in ready to "love it", or the 10 plus musical numbers and Boseman's strong performance were enough to win you over.

More problems: The editing choices were undoubtedly the most noticeably distracting flaw of the film; to the point where I just gave up trying to figure out why Taylor chose to tell this straightforward story by RANDOMLY (and relentlessly) bouncing through time like some kind of Kurt Vonnegut novel. From the very beginning "Get on Up" plays as though Taylor had seen a linear cut of his finished product, wasn't happy with it and then decided to put scenes in random order, with the thought that maybe it would make it a more entertaining watch. Guess, what? It didn't work.

There are a few other things Taylor tries that didn't work; namely the use of surreal visuals, which in this instance sounds like a brilliant filmmaking technique, since Brown is a character with a fragile mental psyche. But in Taylor's hands, this technique comes off as dreadfully heavy handed. Oh, and don't even get me started on the countless instances of annoying 4th wall breaks! Final Thought: For about an hour, "Get on Up" was good enough; getting by on Boseman's performance, some interesting back-story and the first few musical numbers. But as the latter half of this 138 minute movie rears its ugly head, "Get on Up" becomes repetitive with performances consisting of the same choreography (It isn't as though Brown's dance moves weren't entertaining, but it's a movie! Mix it up!) and conflicts between characters I had no emotional stake in. Make no mistake, I am a fan of James Brown aka "the hardest working man in show business", aka "the Godfather of Soul". And knowing how eccentric the man was in real life, I was really looking forward to a film about the life and times of this controversial and groundbreaking musical figure. And when I heard that "Get on Up" was to be directed by Tate Taylor and produced

brown_eyez_dyme 18 February 2015

I'm glad I did not go to the movies and pay full price to see this movie. Get on up was a catchy title and I thought this movie was going to do me more. It did not do me any justice at all. I did not enjoy this movie. It nearly put me to sleep. The acting was pretty good, but maybe I could not get into it since I did not know the life James Brown lived. This was my parents era. The music was nice, but it had a lot of back and forth from present to past tense occurring events that happened in this movie. This is the type of movie where it would show the dates and time periods on the screen. Would I recommend this movie? No....would I watch it again? No.. Was it worth the free red box movie rental, sure.

rgkarim 2 August 2014

James Brown, a musical legend whose funk and soul spread from city to city over decades. With movies looking for anything to make a story about, these days, it was only a matter of time before the Godfather of Soul was chosen. Yet despite his musical influence, could the directors make a film that would do justice to him, or like other tributes fall short and are nothing more than a bore. Going in for my third movie this weekend, I'm here to share my thoughts about Get On Up, titled after one of my favorite songs.

After seeing Four Seasons, I worried that this movie would be another drawn out drama with only tidbits of music here and there. Yet the directing team decided to actually bring the music to the front and give the audience the music they knew and loved. Get On Up plays a plethora of songs from toe tapping Get On Up to the soulful Please, each timed in the story to mimic the emotions at hand. While some of the songs are only segments, the movie gives you enough of a show to satisfy the funk within you. The numbers are well designed, with Chadwick Boseman bringing some impressively choreographed moves, including the famous split that will have guys cringing. One feels like they are in a constant, at home with the crowd as the cameras circle around the bandstand. What's also nice is that the songs are spread throughout the movie, and one doesn't have to wait to long before another song is blasting through the speakers. However, this also leads to a little problem, as so many songs leads to a messy story that is fractured, sporadic, and sometimes confusing to follow.

This leads me to the next part, the story. Like many movies about musical icons the story is predictable mess, again showing traumatic backstories and showing their rise to fame. However, Get On Up diverges from the typical linear presentation and decides to jump around Brown's life. In the beginning, it is confusing to follow, because the order doesn't make sense, nor is it easy to find the relevancy at the time. As the movie continues, you get an idea of what the director is trying to do, using the scenes as an illustration of his thoughts at the time, the primal drive to his actions. It's cool, but again confusing as you try to pick up what is going on at the times. Some of the flashbacks are also awkwardly timed and sometimes seem to are left untied as the movie continues. At times I asked, "What was the point of that scene?" only to get an answer an hour down the line. It's diverse yes, but the approach needs to be ironed out a little more for this reviewer to get the most out of it. Unfortunately, this movie's plot is still similar to all band stories, in the fact that there is an inevitable rise and fall that we will see them go through.

Despite the order of the scenes though, Get On Up has some impressive production behind the movie. As I already mentioned, the music scenes are the most entertaining of the bunch, but the drama surrounding it is well designed. Plenty of my fellow audience members commented on how well they captured the decade, designing the various cast in the costumes of the era. Backstage hassles, luxurious hotels, and studios were all crafted into smoke filled wonders, and you feel drawn in to Brown's life. What was also nice to see was the lack of using a grey filter, a very popular filter at the moment, to make the already dismal world even more depressing. Instead, the world is colorful and vibrant, much like the music.

Finally the acting. Boseman steal

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