Superbad?: The James Brown bio-pic

The James Brown bio-pic Get On Up is such a holy mess and that's such a shame because the music, almost all of it performed by James Brown (and dubbed - I guess that's how they do it - in expertly to Chadwick Boseman's lip synch) that you may want to watch the movie just for the soundtrack, which I did, but good luck trying to keep track of the numerous leaps across time and space, the mad jumping about among different eras in JB's life, for no apparent reason, Boseman's often unintelligible attempts to capture Brown's raspy speaking voice, the weird decision to open with a scene of JB at his lowest ebb and most bizarre public behavior, and ... I could go on but perhaps less said better said. For whatever misguided reason, the crew behind this production decided against a straightforward, chronological musical bio pic, a la the relatively recent Ray Charles of Johnny Cash films, and went for an "art" film approach, like the Bob Dylan disaster (albeit with great soundtrack) I'm Not There. Though the Dylan pic made no sense, at least you could follow it; this weirdly edited version w/ completely unhelpful inter-titles, will defy anyone to keep the eras, the characters, the trends in Brown's career, clear in mind. Boseman does his best, and he dances the part very well; the sidemen are interchangeable (maybe that's the point?) and I know for a fact that the guy playing Maseo Parker looks and sounds nothing like the actual sax player. The women are also interchangeable and expendable - again, maybe that's part of the point, but still - w/ the exception of Brown's estranged mother played well by Viola Davis; Dan Akroyd does his best as JB's manager, but is beset by some totally hackneyed screenwriting. It's frustrating because there was potentially great material in here about the rise to fame of a deeply flawed man, but the film does all that it can to keep the audience distanced from this material. The soundtrack makes it worth watching, or at least worth hearing.