1988. During a high-speed chase, James Brown is arrested in an altered state for carrying a gun and speeding. This is the end of the legend born in poverty in South Carolina in 1933, who made it to the top despite a violent father and a mother who abandoned him, spent time in prison during a racially tense period, had a brutal marriage and suffered from extreme loneliness. The story of the troubled and troubling man behind the Godfather of Soul.

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A Hollywood movie about James Brown was just a matter of time. Motivated by Oscars for Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, Reese Witherspoon as June Carter and Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf, the biopic genre as an Academy vehicle is back with the story of the Godfather of soul and inventor of funk, a man gnawed at by violence, talent and ambition. Tate Taylor, on his own way up since the phenomenal success of 2011’s The Help, milks the genre for all it’s worth, with bursts of narration introducing a number of more or less happy ellipses. This very long movie – 2:20 – hits all the usual biopic highlights as it follows the usual structure – a sharp rise to fame, the unavoidable fall, the final redemption and a bad childhood in between to add flavor.

Produced by Mick Jagger, the movie unsurprisingly rests mainly on the performance by Chadwick Boseman, the star of 42, which was an American blockbuster last year. Completely changed thanks to a funky bouffant hairdo and channeling torment, the actor also holds to the rules of the genre, while the audience gets to amuse itself by counting all the actresses that came over from The Help – Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and even Allison Janney in two tiny scenes. In the end, Get on Up makes for easy watching, is much better than the terrible Jersey Boys, but is much too classic to be really memorable.