I knew the from the moment I heard that this joint was directly backed by the Jackson estate that it was going to be bad, but yeah, this isn’t it. This makes me feel disappointment and cynicism. While it’s clearly already doing super well in the box office department, I won’t be there to celebrate the financial success. It don’t matter to me. No, I won’t come together to celebrate that W, except maybe from the point of view of supporting the cinema system.
Enough with the MJ puns and onto some actual thoughts.
(Look, it’s a microphone. On its side, mind you. Just tried to get it to swivel round a bit, but it didn’t work. Anyway, turn ya head sideways for a mo, if you would be so kind)
How hollow do you need to get? Sure, you know it’s going to make some decent dollar in the box office department, but did you really have to make it so stale? Yes, one of the film’s three producers is Graham King, who’s behind Bohemian Rhapsody (another producer is John Branca, Jackson’s attorney. Hm. Nice. Lots of room for an objective portrayal here). As with that empty joint, the central performance is compelling, but there’s nothing interesting to get your teeth into. We know all the content. The film just follows the beige linear narrative of Jackson’s life up until the Bad era. Then those cynical ending words after the credits lets you know that ‘Michael Jackson will return’. Code for, ‘yes, we will be fleecing this horse for all that its worth, and damn the authenticity’. Sure, they go into vaguely dark territory in terms of Michael’s relationship with his abusive dad (Colman Domingo on typically fine form), but it’s not explored particularly well, and the rest of the film is just gushing praise from all of the surrounding crowd. Just everyone going, ‘Hey Michael, that was great, wow’. The whole film’s more of a jukebox musical, a slice of promotional propaganda (not tasty, just to add), than a strict biopic.
(There’s the microphone, but with more pen work from yours truly. No I couldn’t get the image to turn around into landscape. Annoying, for sure)
Part of the reason Michael feels so lame is probably down to the fact that my local cinema has been putting on a season of music biopics recently, and they’ve all been fantastic. Straight Outta Compton was a particular standout, but 8 Mile and Ray were both great too. There was just so much energy and drama in all of those flicks, whereas here it’s just going through the motions, year by year, concert by concert. Add some excitement, dude. It’s clearly going to do the job of keeping the MJ fanbase as excited as ever, but a music biopic needs to have something compelling to say in order to get across any real impact. Here it’s just the Jackson estate going ‘we’ve got our man to promote and we’re gonna promote him. None of that controversial stuff. None at all’. The guarantee of a second movie technically means there’s some potential to explore that area, but are they going to do that? Nah. All the stories about excessive edits (there are four editors here, which doesn’t feel like a great sign), cuts and interventions from the estate in the production of Michael just suggest the next one’s going to be another curated, polished and crystal clean product designed to appeal to its target audience.
By not addressing any of that darker, stranger side of the man, however supremely talented he might be, it just leaves awkward moments in the narrative. I couldn’t look at scenes where Michael was obsessively reading Peter Pan and stories about Neverland without thinking about, you guessed it, Leaving Neverland, the 2019 documentary that provided some pretty disturbing background about the troubled star. Add to that all the montages (and yes, like all tried-and-tested music biopics, there’s plenty of montages) of Michael visiting sick children in hospital, and the awkwardness just grows and grows. There could have at least been some opportunity to explore Michael’s discography in a fairly entertaining and non-linear fashion, but any potential creativity in that department is just squashed by lazy, ‘he did that and then this’ linear snoozefests. Disappointing. Bad, one might say.
(And there it is again, not turned around properly. I guess it still looks good in portrait. But ideally have a gander at it in landscape by turning your neck round a lil’ bit. Merci)