Get On Up - reviews of 'thrilling' James Brown biopic

What you need to know

A new biopic about legendary American soul singer James Brown, Get On Up, opens in UK cinemas today. Tate Taylor (The Help) directs the film written by British brothers John-Henry and Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem).

Chadwick Boseman stars as Brown, who overcomes an impoverished South Carolina childhood and spends time in prison before transforming himself into the world-famous Godfather of Soul. With Viola Davis and Dan Ackroyd.

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What the critics like

"Energising, stylish and engrossing", Get On Up features a career-making performance from Boseman who plays it just right, says Dan Jolin in Empire. He is brilliant and it would be madness if he isn't among the Oscar runners this season.

This viscerally explosive biopic "thrillingly captures the frenzy of Brown's music, and the forces driving that frenzy, both musical and personal", says Stephen Holden in the New York Times. Like its gyrating, spasmodic staccato beats, Get On Up refuses to stand still.

"A grand piece of magic happens with Chadwick Boseman's utter inhabitation of the role of James Brown," says Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out. The mysterious man behind the legend comes through with uncommon, heart-stopping electricity - so much of this film is uncannily perfect.

What they don't like

Brown had "a big life that resists being crammed into one movie" but this film tries to do it anyway, jumping around in time and dropping in a slew of characters, says Peter Travis in Rolling Stone. It shows Brown's temper and his faults as a control freak, but blinks hard when issues turn to jail time, guns, drugs, spousal abuse, and how his support of civil rights protests sits with endorsements of Nixon and Reagan.