Michael

The Word Is Out, So Here’s Mine.

Wait a While, and You’ll Do Fine

As People Talk (Don’t Leave Your Seat)

Before He Sings (Cause It’s a Treat)

And now, a longer review of Michael, the year's most anticipated biopic.

A few reviews have taken the film to task for ignoring certain aspects of its subject's life. A lot of it is due to legal reasons, including a settlement that nobody told the filmmakers about until it almost wrapped. More of it is due to the film ending in 1988, years before these aspects unfurled. For this review, I will try to focus on the film that director Antoine Fuqua, writer John Logan, their multiple editors (including Oscar-winners John Ottman and Tom Cross), and others ended up creating. 

Anyway, it begins in 1966, where Daddy Dearest Joseph (Colman Domingo) gets Michael and his Older Brothers to form The Jackson 5. They hit it big when they sign on with Motown Records, whose founder Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate) sees solo greatness in Michael. But Joseph wants Michael on the family act forever and ever. Michael creates hit after hit, some bigger than others, while wrestling out of his father's control. Yeah, I think that's about it.

Michael Jackson, of course, is played by his nephew Jaafar. Between his pitch-perfect voice and dance moves, it’s easy to forget you’re watching an actor for two hours. Chances are, you won’t even notice that Jaafar’s vocals were blended with Michael’s. Jaafar even nails his uncle's off-stage affability, which helps get one through the film's slower parts (mostly between songs). He's even pitiable enough that it might make one reconsider joking about MJ's eccentricities. For all anyone’s concerned, the King of Pop lives again.

No scene makes that clearer than when he films the Thriller music video. Its cinematic recreation, filmed by Dion Beebe, is just as fresh as it was forty-three years ago. I could watch its dance on infinite loop! It's even exhilarating to watch Michael's creativeness at work as he brainstorms the eponymous album's name. Meanwhile, getting actual gang members to dance on Beat It perfectly displays his charm. The Bad finale is nice and loud, almost concert-level loud. It's particularly interesting to watch Michael in the studio, as we switch between him singing to nothing and the engineers listening to the backing track. Needless to say, this film sounds great.

Domingo's performance is fascinatingly weird. Early on, Joseph whips young Michael (Juliano Krue Valdi, who also nails his role) for protesting his non-stop rehearsal schedule (it's unbelievably tough to watch). From then on, he's utterly terrifying when he's alone with Michael, even as an adult. With the whole family present, he's a card-carrying villain who talks of his selfishness with a DJ's smoothness. Still, him being more concerned with Michael being able to perform after the fiery Pepsi accident, rather than his well-being, isn't very nice. It's still satisfying whenever Michael stands up to him, especially the final Victory Tour concert. 

Who else do we have in the cast? For starters, there's Bubbles the Chimp, who's played by an obvious CGI chimpanzee. He's still an obviously enjoyable CGI chimpanzee, so there's that. If I do have any gripes, it's that the film barely acknowledges The Wiz, where MJ played Scarecrow and met producer Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson). That being said, he makes a good impression here, as does Gordy. Meanwhile, we've got some pretty good performances from Miles Teller (MJ's attorney, John Branca), KeiLyn Durrel Jones (bodyguard Bill Bray) and Nia Long (Mother Katherine). I can't believe that I didn't recognize Mike Meyers as CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff, whose only scene is hilariously awesome.

A Captain Obvious title reminds us that "His Story Continues." There's been talk of a sequel, largely due to all the footage left out of this one, and especially due to Michael's reputation. I'm a bit curious, and mostly concerned, with how they'll portray the aforementioned aspects. There's a lot of wrong moves they could make with them, and I'll leave it at that. Right now, feel free to moonwalk to this instalment. Sure, you might save a lot of money by playing his greatest hits at home, but this one's visual aspects make it worthwhile. 

I'm going to stop now that I've had enough.