I’m only supposed to watch “Bob Marley: One Love” on Monday evening. They are slowly rolling this one out, not letting every critic watch it at the same time. With that said, the reviews are not good — 36% on Rotten Tomatoes and 45 on Metacritic.
What we have here is the kind of token bland Oscar bait biopic that keeps being released every year. It failed miserably last December with “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and it’s failed again with this one. Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green.
It’s said to be a cookie cutter biopic with a good lead performance (Kingsley Ben-Adir). That seems to be the consensus … that it’s utterly conventional. The trailer made it look that way. If you want a good account of the reggae singer’s life then a good start would probably be Kevin Macdonald’s definitive 2012 doc, “Marley.”
Given that I’m a music junkie, and love Marley’s tunes, I will still watch this film. If you remember, “Bob Marley: One Love” originally had a limited late 2023 release to qualify for Oscars, but was then delayed to Valentine’s Day 2024. Not a bad decision.