After months of anticipation, Bob Marley: One Love, was finally unreleased on February 14, 2024. This inspirational movie stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley, showcasing this story of fame and all that he believed in during his life.
Bob Marley was a Jamaican singer who performed throughout his life and lived to bring people together. He wanted to encapsulate the idea of love and kindness among all people and used his music as a voice to bring this idea out into the world.
Bob Marley: One Love tells the story of some of Marley’s biggest and most impactful performances and life experiences that created his legendary role in music all over the world. The movie highlights the pivotal events of Marley’s final tour before he died in 1981 at age 36. These events include bringing two opposing politicians together on stage, playing sold-out shows, nearly being assassinated multiple times, moving away from his home and family for months, and many more.
Producers tried their best to make sure this movie stayed as accurate to the truth as it possibly could. To ensure this, Bob Marley’s kids helped to produce the movie to give their input on what they thought a perfect representation of their father’s life would be. Ziggy, Tuff Gong, and Ceddella Marley were all producers of the movie and helped bring Bob Marley’s story to life. Ziggy Marley shared multiple times in interviews that he feels that the movie beautifully portrays his father’s story and life.
However, many critics felt that this movie didn’t quite reach the mark and felt as though it was lacking certain elements and depth like his religious standpoints that they mention throughout the movie, “Rastafari” (theatlantic.com). On Metacritic.com, the film was only given a 43% score, many of those reviews coming from people who had mixed feelings about the film. Not only was the score low on this site, but on IMDB, One Love seemed to not receive enough love as its rating was 6.6/10.
Some viewers, like North sophomore Vanessa Padilla, shares why she feels the movie didn’t quite meet the mark, “I expected it to be more about his uprising, him becoming famous, and his achievements. But it started with him already touring and the plot made no sense.”
While there were some mixed signals from many critics of the movie, many fans were still excited to see Marley’s story brought to the big screen. These positive responses from fans were demonstrated through the ticket sales the movie received. “The film made $27.7 million in theaters between Friday and Sunday and has already grossed an additional $29 million overseas, making it the third highest-grossing movie of the year worldwide to date,” People shares.
Overall, Bob Marley: One Love pays tribute to the inspirational story of Bob Marley and his wonderfully impactful career. Definitely a must-watch if stories of trials, tribulation, inspiration, and success are your cup of tea!
