Marley
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: April 20, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 17, 2012
The tunes, flooding every frame, remain perfect. Read full review
100
EmpireEve BarlowApr 16, 2012
A masterful documentary to rival Macdonald's "Touching The Void." Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanApr 14, 2012
Marley was directed by the gifted Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), who shows off his chops not by doing anything dazzling - the film is documentary prose, not poetry - but by treating Marley as a man of depth and nuance, of inner light and shadow. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen HoldenApr 19, 2012
Marley is a detailed, finely edited character study whose theme - Marley's bid to reconcile his divided racial legacy - defined his music and his life. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 19, 2012
What Marley and its wonderful performance footage leave you with most of all is the joy the man took in the music that set him free and enchanted the world. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 19, 2012
It is gripping from the start, not just because of the quality of the music, but because of Marley's magnetic, challenging personality, as well. Read full review
90
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonApr 17, 2012
Thoroughly researched and packed with phenomenal archival footage, it's a rousing tribute to a mesmerizing performer that forgoes blind hero worship. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerApr 15, 2012
Marley is sure to become the definitive documentary on the much beloved king of reggae. Read full review
88
USA TodayScott BowlesApr 22, 2012
Sprinkled with riffs, concert footage and home videos, the family-authorized documentary does what the artist usually did: When in doubt, return to the beat. Read full review
88
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeApr 20, 2012
The movie has enormous force - because it's about a genius, yes, but even more so because of the intelligence, passion and wit of the people who knew Marley. Read full review
88
Washington PostDavid MalitzApr 19, 2012
Marley, the new documentary about reggae icon Bob Marley opens on April 20 - of course. That date - often referred to as 420 - has been, since the 1970s, a time for people to gather to consume or celebrate pot. It has become an unofficial marijuana holiday, and Bob Marley has become the unofficial saint of marijuana. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 19, 2012
It all flows from the shum. The man's musical and political influence was no illusion. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 18, 2012
Marley, an ambitious and comprehensive film, does what is probably the best possible job of documenting an important life. Read full review
85
MovielineStephanie ZacharekApr 19, 2012
By the end you feel you've learned something about the man, yet his mystique emerges intact. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevyApr 19, 2012
It may, finally, be the best and last word on the man, his music and his myth that we ever get on film -- an estimable achievement in itself. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensApr 19, 2012
The thoughtful and leisurely paced Marley is an exemplary music documentary in almost every way - but the area in which it falls short is an important one. Like a surprisingly large number of films about musicians (whether biopic or documentary), this one is curiously resistant to letting the audience hear its subject's songs in their entirety. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 19, 2012
The director, Kevin Macdonald, searches for clarity amid the contradictions of Marley's life and reaches no conclusions, but that's a tribute to his subject's complexity in a film of fascinating too-muchness. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJim FarberApr 19, 2012
Though the course of the movie, viewers learns a lot about the star's generosity, sense of justice and power in Jamaica, but also about his naivete. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneApr 16, 2012
Inspiring though Marley is, however, it tends to deploy his music purely as an illustration of his life. Not once, as far as I could tell, do we watch a song being played straight through from beginning to end. [23 April 2012, p.82]
80
VarietyGuy LodgeApr 15, 2012
Kevin Macdonald's generous, absorbing, family-authorized documentary on the late, still-reigning king of reggae music. Read full review
80
The GuardianAndrew PulverApr 15, 2012
What results is an immensely detailed overview of Marley's life and times, from the hillside Jamaican shack where he grew up to the snowy Bavarian clinic where he spent his last weeks in a fruitless attempt to cure the cancer that killed him in 1981, aged 36. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyApr 15, 2012
Every second is earned in Macdonald's long, generous and rigorously detailed Bob doc. You might wish for more live material but what's here is stirring, probing and moving. Read full review
78
NPRIan BuckwalterApr 19, 2012
Stylistically unremarkable, playing it safe with structure, the film is still quietly revelatory. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 18, 2012
Most striking is Macdonald's deft use of music and Marley's lyrics (many of them obscure) to illustrate the film's points. So thoughtful is this counterpoint that it almost makes up for Macdonald never showing any one song in a complete performance. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerMay 17, 2012
Marley the film wonderfully explains its subject's music. As for Macdonald's message, I'm just not sure. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 20, 2012
Marley is thus a valuable history project but not a definitive or analytical one. For that, we await a film that's less "One Love" and more "Stir It Up." Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaApr 20, 2012
Marley celebrates the fact that its subject is still among us in the way that perhaps matters most: His music not only survives, it thrives. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeSteve MorseApr 19, 2012
It's an outstanding, warts-and-all look at reggae legend Bob Marley. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezApr 19, 2012
You also see a man, flawed and imperfect, finding his way through with his music, constantly searching for his place in the world. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsApr 18, 2012
That's a lot for any film to unpack, and "The Last King Of Scotland" director Kevin MacDonald deserves a lot of credit simply for keeping the narrative coherent. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 20, 2012
There is no diverting from strict chronology, no point the documentary wants to make that requires moving forward and back through time. It just inches ahead, one year to another, sometimes one day to another. By the middle, each time a year changes, it's a relief. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineGlenn Heath Jr.Apr 19, 2012
The bloat and heft of Marley's narrative scope leaves the viewer awash in a sea of historical "facts" with very little sense of the human experience behind the curtain of celebrity. Read full review
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