Michael: The Movie Moonwalks Nicely, But Steps Carefully Around, Um, Other Stuff
By Liz Braun
Rating: B
If you don’t know much about Michael Jackson and are content to keep it that way, Michael is the film for you.
Full of the King of Pop’s electrifying music and dance movies, Michael is a celebratory spectacle that goes down as easy as a Vegas tribute show. It is not the definitive Michael Jackson biopic. And reshoots suggest it is not the picture filmmaker Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) set out to make, either.
Nonetheless, it is an entertaining two hours. A sparkly thing. And you can dance to it.
Jaafar Jackson is terrific in the role of his late uncle Michael. He is perhaps slightly more earthbound than his mega-famous relative, but who else ever had the gravity-defying moves of Michael Jackson? Okay, yes, Simone Biles. But still.
Michael begins in 1966 in Gary, Indiana, where the Jackson brothers are being put through their paces by their formidable father, Joe (Colman Domingo). Joe is determined to get his kids organized into a singing group as a way to parlay the whole family out of a blue-collar life, but his angry style is all stick and no carrot.
Little Michael (charismatic young actor Juliano Valdi) seems to be the target of his father’s worst control issues, and the kid gets a thrashing from Joe for talking back. That’s the main conflict throughout: MJ versus his mean father. Michael is depicted as a solitary, dreamy kid whose escape is via literature such as The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan.
Shades of Neverland, boys and girls.
Thereafter the Motown years unfold, Barry Gordy (Larenz Tate) recognizes Michael’s talent, and soon enough the Jacksons are very successful. Michael indulges his love of animals, talking his mother, Katherine (Nia Long), into letting him get a llama. Later, Bubbles the chimp joins the family.
By 1978, when he’s working on Off The Wall, Michael is played by Jaafar Jackson, leading here with vulnerability and killer dance moves.
He gets a new nose so his publicity photos will be perfect. He gets a ton of fan mail. He visits sick children in hospital. He talks about taking charge of his own destiny. He isn’t thrilled about doing the Triumph tour with his brothers, but he does it.
The movie spends time on the creation of Thriller, a segment that introduces Miles Teller into the story as John Branca — the man who fires Joe Jackson as Michael’s handler. There are lively segments about the filming of the Thriller and Beat It videos; then there's the disastrous 1984 Pepsi commercial during which Jackson’s hair catches fire and he nearly dies.
The movie makes a direct link between that accident and the superstar’s eventual drug dependence.
But MJ recovers, and once the heinous Victory tour winds up — why so much screen time devoted to Don King? — he gets away from his father’s terrible grasp to fully become a solo artist. Yay! The movie ends with MJ on stage at Wembley Stadium in 1988 as part of his triumphant Bad tour.
Michael does not venture further into Jackson’s life. It’s an odd mix of fact and fantasy (and prosthetics), and heavy on the fantasy — there were already big cracks in the veneer by the time the Victory tour rolled around, almost a decade before Jackson became a tabloid scandal fixture.
Janet Jackson is MIA in this film. LaToya (Jessica Sula) appears briefly in one or two scenes. Mike Myers turns up in a weird cameo as the sort of yenta version of CBS Records honcho Walter Yetnikoff. Gladys Knight (Liv Symone) gets her moment of recognition in the Jackson Brothers’ rise, but shouldn’t Diana Ross have figured in here somewhere?
Anyway, Michael is the sort of movie critics hate and most others feel a guilty pleasure in enjoying. It's a fan's dream. Your faith in Antoine Fuqua will not be tested too severely.
Michael. Written by John Logan, directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Jaafar Jackson, Colman Domingo, Juliano Valdi, Nia Long, Miles Teller. In theatres April 24.