A new movie about Bob Marley has been critically savaged.
The reggae legend's son Ziggy said the mission of Bob Marley: One Love was to bring people together and share Bob's message of unity.
Unfortunately, that mission seems to have been something of a well-intentioned failure, with harsh reviews leaving it flailing.
Many reviewers felt the movie, made with the full cooperation of Bob's family, was too reverent of its subject to be truly engaging.
"Bob's music, his message, it's what we grew up on," director Reinaldo Marcus Green told CBC News.
"I think Ziggy said it best: 'Bob wasn't a perfect man, but he had a perfect purpose.' I think that that's what this film's about."
The Marley family's passion for that purpose appears to have ruffled critics' feathers.
"This is a reverent Hallmark Channel-type film," Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian.
"There's hardly a relative here without an associate producer credit — and of course it has all the musical rights."
Michael O'Sullivan in The Washington Post described the film as "an effort to render Marley's story in more messianic terms: His music, we're told, was not just something to get high to … but a gospel-like message of unity, peace and love."
Owen Gleiberman for Variety kept it simple: "One Love flirts with complexity but slides into the banality of hero worship."
The reggae legend's son Ziggy said the mission of Bob Marley: One Love was to bring people together and share Bob's message of unity.
Unfortunately, that mission seems to have been something of a well-intentioned failure, with harsh reviews leaving it flailing.
Many reviewers felt the movie, made with the full cooperation of Bob's family, was too reverent of its subject to be truly engaging.
"Bob's music, his message, it's what we grew up on," director Reinaldo Marcus Green told CBC News.
"I think Ziggy said it best: 'Bob wasn't a perfect man, but he had a perfect purpose.' I think that that's what this film's about."
The Marley family's passion for that purpose appears to have ruffled critics' feathers.
"This is a reverent Hallmark Channel-type film," Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian.
"There's hardly a relative here without an associate producer credit — and of course it has all the musical rights."
Michael O'Sullivan in The Washington Post described the film as "an effort to render Marley's story in more messianic terms: His music, we're told, was not just something to get high to … but a gospel-like message of unity, peace and love."
Owen Gleiberman for Variety kept it simple: "One Love flirts with complexity but slides into the banality of hero worship."