Marley aficionados will be astonished by the depth and breadth of the documentary, which portrays the musician known as Tuff Gong as both a fallible man and an untouchable legend.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 18, 2012

Marley is highly watchable, finely crafted legacy preservation - and it's either a white-washed sham or awesomely shaded.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 18, 2012

It wants to show us the man behind the famous dreads, beatific smile and durable songs of love, hope and longing. In this task it succeeds admirably.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 17, 2012

You'll walk away from this ambitious documentary longing to hear Marley's voice again (thank heaven for iTunes) and with a deep respect for a man.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 24, 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.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 20, 2012

Macdonald supplies some interesting and novel details about the musician's life and art, though the movie's narrative arc and documentary methods are totally predictable.

| Apr 20, 2012

Marley finally gives the world an authoritative, nonhagiographic survey of Marley's life.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 20, 2012

This is an appropriately exhaustive study of the man and his music, its only failing is the absence of a decent political analysis of Rastafari and the beliefs that informed Marley to the end of his life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 20, 2012

Given the legal and logistical constraints on this long-delayed project, this lengthy movie is as comprehensive a history as Marley's fans could have hoped, but the uninitiated may not catch a fire.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 20, 2012

Bob Marley wrote the same song about 8,000 times, and the documentary "Marley" makes sure to include each version.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 20, 2012

Even audiences for whom easing up to dutty riddims is not an habitual pursuit will get an intoxicating whiff of reggae's soothing powers from Marley...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 20, 2012

This is a life story worth telling, and "Marley" does it much justice. Marley may or may not have been perfect, but he was certainly fascinating.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 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.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 20, 2012

It's exhaustive without being exhausting, an eye-opening and all-encompassing portrait that should go a long way to rescuing him from being a marijuana mascot.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 20, 2012

Kevin Macdonald's solid, informative, respectful bio-doc is not quite the dazzling, innovative non-fiction we might have expected from the Oscar-winning director of Touching the Void.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 20, 2012

Chronologically organized and voiceover-free, the movie is a 145-minute patchwork of old concert footage and talking-head interviews -- lots and lots of them -- from people who knew, loved, and worked with the reggae giant.

| Apr 19, 2012

The enormous popularity of the transcendent reggae superstar shows no signs of abating, a situation"Marley," a moving and authoritative new documentary, takes as its mission to illustrate and explain.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2012

Even those who know reggae star Bob Marley inside and out might be amazed by the scope, detail and beauty of "Marley"...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 19, 2012

Stylistically unremarkable, playing it safe with structure, the film is still quietly revelatory.

| Original Score: 7.8/10 | Apr 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.

| Apr 19, 2012