By JADYN IBY
Arts Editor
Bob Marley’s new biopic came out Feb. 14, shedding light on Marley’s legendary journey to finding peace and love for not only himself but others too.
The movie starts off with his rise to fame in the mid ‘70s, going all the way up to when he died in 1981. The movie also gives flashbacks of Marley’s young self, and how from a very young age he was into making music and spreading “the message,” a message of peace and unity.
As a big Bob Marley fan, there were many things I didn’t know about Marley that they expressed in the film which I admired the filmmakers for.
The film includes a lot of Marley’s lesser known music/hits, which I felt was a little disappointing, but any music of Bob Marley’s in my opinion, is good. But, if you have only heard his most popular songs you might not enjoy the soundtrack.
The casting in this film was great. Kingsley Ben-Adir plays Bob Marley in this biopic, along with Lashana Lynch playing Marley’s wife Rita. Ben-Adir did a great job playing Marley, he had a good Jamaican accent and did the role justice. However, the wig that he wore, which was supposed to represent Marley’s famous dreads, looked a little off; they weren’t as authentic as I thought they would look. You could tell he was wearing a wig.
When it comes to Lynch playing Rita, she did an amazing job as well. The emotion and passion she put into the film and her acting really created a good on-screen relationship between the two characters.
In this movie, I wish the filmmakers would have given the audience some more of Marley’s background. While the story-line is good, and they show many things people probably didn’t know about Marley, I feel like if we could have had a little more about Marley as a young child or teenager, and his pre-reggae musical career, it would have been better. They only give brief flashbacks of Marley as a young boy and teenager, as well as his very brief relationship with his father. I feel that is where the movie lacked in the biopic area.
The movie was short because it only showed his life from the mid 70’s to the 80’s; which isn’t a long span of time. As I see it, they could have done a better job showing his rise to fame. They also lack in telling us how he and the Wailers (Marley’s band) came to be as well. We just assume from how they directed the movie that that is his band and that they have always been with him. It is unfortunate that they didn’t include more background information on Marley.
All in all, even though the movie lacked in a few areas of Marley’s life, I would still recommend this movie to anyone interested in him and his life. As I stated, there are many things that the movie does shed light on, that I didn’t know about Marley. I think that the most important thing in this film is Marley’s message to the world. His message of inclusion and unity has inspired many people and will continue to do so for generations to come.
