Mom wanted to see Get on Up. I was warned early on not to expect much, which is why I didn’t encourage her to see it in the theaters, but I didn’t recall all the reasons. I am NOT KIDDING. I actually said, “Was Get on Up directed by the same guy who directed The Help?!?” I looked it up on IMDb, and it was! Why is he obsessed with toilets? Does he only direct movies if it involves black people and toilets? I know that The Help is a book, but out of all the events in James Brown’s life, a fictional account of Brown enforcing a toilet code of conduct with a shotgun would not be the first thing on my list of things to portray about the Father of Soul. Get on Up is extremely disappointing. Usually when a film has a character break the fourth wall or shift between different time periods, there is an obvious reason, but in Get On Up, it just scrambles up good material into an unrecognizable mess. Get On Up is a waste of insanely great source material and amazing actors that rarely get showcased so to get them in the same movie should be a rare treat: Nelsan Ellis, Lennie James, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Craig Robinson, Jill Scott and Black Panther/Jackie Robinson, I mean, Chadwick Boseman. I even thought Dan Ackroyd did a great job.
What is Tate Taylor trying to say about James Brown? He suffered from a dysfunctional and abusive childhood so despite all his talent, he became a dysfunctional and abusive adult with an uncanny ability to survive who realized too late the error of his ways. Really? Who hasn’t? Get On Up is at its best when it focuses on what makes James Brown different from you and me: his musical and business genius in scenes with Ackroyd and Little Richard. If the world was fair, Nelsan Ellis would already be a leading man with a pile of trophies weighing him down. Best known as Lafayette in True Blood, Ellis plays Brown’s brother for all ostensible purposes except blood.
Get On Up is a narrative mess filled with talent. If you love the actors and can stand the stink, then Get On Up and see it, but you’ve been warned. James Brown deserved better.