![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-68-691x1024.png\"){kind=spacer}
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n It was a good idea for \u201cBob Marley: One Love\u201d to open on Valentine\u2019s Day. Not just because there hadn\u2019t been a decent box office performer in weeks (and even \u201cMean Girls and \u201cThe Beekeeper\u201d were only mild hits) and the market was ripe for a takeover. Not just because the holiday weekend needed a blockbuster and \u201cMadame Web\u201d wasn\u2019t up to the task. But because the movie had \u201cLove\u201d in its title, it could dominate the couples\u2019 scene on Wednesday and ride that insurmountable lead to winning the weekend. The result was a domestic take of over $50 million, enough to already make it the 2nd<\/sup>-biggest movie of the year, behind only \u201cMean Girls,\u201d which it will probably overtake before the week is out. The film can be associated with a brilliant commercial decision, but not so much its creative ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The film mostly follows reggae legend Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir) in the late 1970\u2019s. He\u2019s already nationally famous when the film begins, as he sets to bravely play a controversial peace concert in Jamaica. Assassins storm his home and shoot Bob, his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch), and his friend Don (Anthony Welsh). All three survive and Bob plays the concert, but he decides that the violence-ridden country is not safe for him and his family anymore. He sends Rita and their children to America while he lies low in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After years of exile and loneliness, Bob releases his album \u201cExodus,\u201d which gains him worldwide fame and brings reggae music to the mainstream. Although he\u2019s always advocated for peace, Rita believes the message has gotten lost in the commercial success and he needs to do something more meaningful. Seeing that she\u2019s right, and faced with his own mortality from a rare form of skin cancer, Bob returns to Jamaica to perform another peace concert, this time to unanimous adulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For months I was dreading this movie because of a line in the trailer. One of the members of Bob\u2019s band asks where he wants to \u201cstart,\u201d and Bob, very thoughtfully says, \u201cFrom the beginning.\u201d The cheesiness of that line told me that this was going to be a painfully by-the-numbers biopic, and on a lot of counts, it is. But to people as alienated by that line as I was, I will say that the scene comes midway through the film, so it does not get the film off on as bad a note as I thought it would. In fact, we see very little of \u201cthe beginning,\u201d aside from a few flashbacks, dream sequences, and text screens. There are a distracting number of text screens, as if there\u2019s going to be a test later. The film can be dry at times, but it\u2019s never quite as bad as homework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBob Marley: One Love\u201d falls into most of the familiar traps of the music biopic, with the singer\u2019s marital troubles and health problems showing up right where you\u2019d expect them. At least the protagonist is an endearing figure and Ben-Adir is giving a charismatic performance. It\u2019s hard not to get swept up in the magic of Bob Marley at times. But then again, that\u2019s a pretty low bar for a movie like this to clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of all the music biopics you can watch in theaters or at home, \u201cBob Marley: One Love\u201d is\u2026 one of them. Netflix-exclusive Best Picture Oscar nominee \u201cMaestro,\u201d where Bradley Cooper plays conductor Leonard Bernstein, on the other hand\u2026 is also \u201cone of them,\u201d honestly. Cooper as director takes a few more creative risks with his film, but both of these movies are eye-rolling Oscar bait. \u201cMaestro\u201d landed among the nominees because it was released right at the end of the year, no doubt it would have been forgotten if it had opened in February like \u201cBob Marley: One Love.\u201d I expect to have forgotten about both movies once one\u2019s box office cools down and the other\u2019s awards run fizzles out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBob Marley: One Love\u201d: C-<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaestro\u201d: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBob Marley: One Love\u201d is rated PG-13 for marijuana use and smoking throughout, some violence and brief strong language. Its running time is 107 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bob Garver It was a good idea for \u201cBob Marley: One Love\u201d to open on Valentine\u2019s Day. Not just because there hadn\u2019t been a decent box office performer… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":59161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[2643],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59162,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160\/revisions\/59162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}