My initial reaction coming out of this was, and it pains me to say it, but bored. I was bored by the end of it. I’m not quite sure how they made Michael Jackson boring but they did.
- Director – Antoine Fuqua
- Runtime – 127 minutes
- Certificate – 12A
- Country – United States
I don’t think I’ve ever been this unsure with a film before but the more I think about it and writing this, I just unfortunately did not enjoy.
Jaafar Jackson gives, to me anyway, a really weird but at the same time great performance. He imitates Michael perfectly. The way he moves, talks and sings. However, that’s all it felt like – an imitation. Michael Jackson had a very intricate and detailed life (which in fairness a lot of the intricacies aren’t covered in the film, i.e. the allegations) but it feels like Jaafar doesn’t tap into that part of him if that makes sense. To be fair to Jaafar, the film doesn’t actually delve that deeply into his life (more on that later).
Another performance worth mentioning is Colman Domingo. I will forever sing his praise – I am a firm believer he should have won Best Actor for Sing Sing but I have no idea what is going in this. I know that Joe Jackson was a horrible person and father in real life but here he is portrayed so cartoonishly evil. It almost feels satirical, or even a caricature. He gives off a menacing presence whenever he’s in shot, but as soon as he opened his mouth I could not take him seriously. At least the prosthetics were brilliant – seriously if you told me it was Domingo playing him, I wouldn’t believe you.
The film is barely a biopic – it’s a stretch to call it that.
It feels as if they’re too afraid to delve into the complicated parts of his life. They mainly focus on the abuse he received from his dad and his insecurities. They obviously push the narrative of him leaving the Jackson 5 and pursuing his solo career but it’s all very surface level.
The story they wanted to tell was about him making the music – which isn’t really much of an exciting story. It’s interesting to see the behind the scenes but not motion picture worthy. Instead the story focus on the overall man behind the music and the making of it. It does make for some cool scenes when he’s making ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’ and making the music videos for ‘Thriller’ and ‘Billie Jean’. But that shouldn’t be the highlights of the film. Is it cool to see and hear the music on the big screen with massive speakers? Absolutely. I was tapping my foot along every time a song was playing. But at the same time you can go and watch the music on videos on Youtube. For free.
Obviously the massive elephant in the room are the allegations. I’m not going to criticise the film for not including them because the timeframe of the film wouldn’t. However, because a sequel is almost inevitable I am sure they will find some kind of way they can address them. The problem is they not so subtly foreshadow them by having him seem like this idolistic figure. Of course people did look up to him at the time but now with the context of the allegations it feels like they put these scenes in as a way to attempt to explain his actions or to remove doubt for those who are sceptical of the verdict.
I do have to give the writers credit here because that is quite a clever way to inadvertently address them. By making him seem like this God like figure, it reinforces the idea that he truly is the ‘best’ and is a myth that could do no wrong. The film constantly beats this over your head, in particular the scene where he records ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’ and says that he is the best. Very obvious. Again doing this shows their intention in not delving deeper than the surface but rather just making a ‘greatest hits’ of his life.
When the Billie Jean Motown clip was released it was not looking good in terms of editing. Made by the team that did Bohemian Rhapsody, there was a lot of cuts and it was generally all over the place. Fortunately I didn’t think the whole film was that bad. It’s edited somewhat well.
The cuts aren’t as obvious and obnoxious but it’s bad in a different way. This feels like an eternity.
This is partly why I was bored by the end – it just keeps going on and on. It’s also shot better than I was expecting to be. However that is only when it is not a concert scene. I get that Michael is extravagant and he is the best performer of all time. But translating it to film just does not work like that. There are so many unnecessary camera movements that disorientate you, zoom in and outs that feel like it should be from an episode of The Office and, for some reason, close ups of Michael that are angled from below.
Michael is unfortunately barely a biopic which treads too carefully around his life, has bizarre performances, paced poorly and over stylised concert scenes. All this is not worth the admission for hearing the music on the big screen.
Michael is now playing at the Lockworks