Some ups and Lots of Down's

Rating: 6/10 (2 December 2004)

While there's no denying that Jamie Foxx's acting throughout this entire movie is simply excellent, in my opinion it's the only thing carrying the film. Other than being FAR to long, there were several scenes throughout the movie which were downright awful...the type of scenes that left me a little frustrated, since they could've been easily excluded, and yet detract from the movie so much that I actually laughed several times (and NOT during any scenes that were intended to be even mildly humorous). Most of these foul-ups dealt with the overly sappy character development and miserably cleched dialog between the young Ray Charles and his mother, but also popped up in other randomly odd places throughout the flick just enough to keep things from getting too realistic. Ultimately, the mix of good and very bad led to an overall disappointing film. My advice: save the money for something better and wait for it to come out on video.