Michael
The highlights of Antoine Fuqua's Michael are the music (how could they not be) and Michael Jackson's own nephew Jaafar Jackson stepping into the King of Pop's shoes. Jaafar nails Michael's movements as the film, and the character, come alive on-stage. The problem is the stage is really the only place Michael works.
Playing more like a greatest hits, bordering at times on propaganda, than a biopic, with the more controversial aspects of Michael Jackson's life (and oddly the entire existence of his most famous sibling) barred from use in the film, Michael provides some toe-tapping fun (particularly in recreating specific moments such as the "Thriller" video), but it also comes up unable to provide any emotional insight into Michael. Odds are you will know more about Michael Jackson walking into the film than when leaving the theater. Michael is more concerned with protecting the IP of Michael Jackson than exploring the man.
The film never delves deeply into Michael or where his songs come from. His process and collaborations with other artists is given lip service, such as short scenes in a recording studio, but no more. The scene introducing Michael to longtime friend and lawyer John Branca (Miles Teller), who is then largely forgotten after playing a crucial role to the plot, reminded me of Walk Hard parody. And his entire life is boiled down into a boy needing to prove himself and stand up to an overbearing father.
While Michael shows frustration with Joe Jackson (Colman Domingo) we never really see much emotion from the happy-go-lucky prodigy that at times you begin to wonder if this vastly simplified Michael presented on-screen might have some form of mental retardation. Playing up the legend of Michael, on the page this whitewashed version of his history is simply a "big kid" with all the natural talent in the world gifted to the world by a benevolent creator. Saint Michael Jackson.
Lacking any kind of depth, other than a base fear of his father, this sanitized version of Michael, even with Jaafar's performance (or Juliano Valdi as a young Michael), begins to wear thin fairly early on. The lack of exploration into the other members of the Jackson Five is also notable as, despite all Joe's moaning about how all his children are equally important, the film makes absolutely no effort to differentiate Michael's brothers from one another or set up any kind of specific relationship between any of them, or his sister La Toya (Jessica Sula), and Michael.
Michael Jackson's music still hits and the recreation of Michael performing his songs is a real crowd pleaser, but every time the music stops you begin to grasp how little the film has to say about Michael Jackson as an artist, and even less as a man. Given the concessions to the family, buffering out anything objectionable other than Michael being a bit weird and childlike even as an adult, maybe it's not surprising how surface-level the film stays throughout, but that leaves the movie castrated and hamstrung in delivering audience with any clues about who Michael was beyond the legend he left behind.
- Title: Michael (2026)
- IMDb: link
