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Film Brain reviews the long-delayed biopic of Michael Jackson, a blatant hagiography which has to moonwalk through controversies, and tries to avoid looking at man in the mirror too deeply in general.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Projector, and on this episode, Michael Jackson moonwalks onto the
00:04big screen at Antoine Fuqua's biopic.
00:23In 1968, 10-year-old Michael Jackson, played as a child by Giuliano Valdi, became the breakout
00:28star of the Jackson 5, under the management of his domineering and abusive father Joe,
00:33played by Coleman Domingo. As Michael grows into adulthood, now played by Jafar Jackson,
00:38he yearns to start a solo career, but even as he becomes the biggest pop before of all time,
00:43Joe refuses to relinquish his control over him. When Bohemian Rhapsody released in 2018,
00:48it was an enormous success, led by Rami Malek's performance as Freddie Mercury, and led to a huge
00:53resurgence in interest in Mercury and Queen, but it also codified the format of the modern music
00:59biopic. These kind of movies are notoriously formulaic, and were absolutely mercilessly
01:05sent up in 2008's sadly under-seen spoof, Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story, a film which has only got
01:11better and more accurate with each passing year, and the more of these films we get. In the years
01:18since Bohemian Rhapsody, we've had movies about Elton John, Elvis, Whitney Houston, Bob Dylan,
01:23David Bowie, and many others. And now, some of those movies are good, but there's also no denying
01:30that these films, most of which were made with the involvement of the artists featured or their
01:35estate, are visualised versions of official biography. They may touch upon their tumultuous
01:40private lives, especially if it's already well known, but there's usually a little deeper insight
01:45further than what's already in the public domain. And this new wave of music biopics has coincided
01:50with a number of concert films and streaming documentaries that function very similarly as a
01:55form of reputation control, and in some cases, rehabilitation. In an era where cinema increasingly
02:01has to feel like an event, these movies feel like concerts for fans who are unable to afford
02:06the extortionate ticket prices. If films are empathy machines, as Roger Ebert once famously put it,
02:12then these biopics and docs put that machine in service of the record label's industrial complex.
02:18They offer the appearance of intimacy and behind the scenes for adoring fans, but they're just as
02:24stage-managed as any performance, smoothing and glossing over any of the uncomfortable stuff
02:29that they don't want them to see.
02:32It's inevitable that Michael Jackson's life would be turned into a film, given he's one of the most iconic
02:36acts of all time. But just as inevitably, like everything else in Jackson's later life and
02:42posthumously, it would be fraught with controversy. Now Michael Jackson isn't the only musician who
02:47leaves behind a deeply divisive legacy, I'm looking at you Elvis, but he is by far the biggest example.
02:54And even years after a sudden death on the eve of a potential comeback, his reputation continues to be
03:00damaged. The estate might have managed to pull leaving Neverland from HBO, effectively making
03:05it unable to be seen legally in the US, but the impact of that and the numerous trials and
03:11accusations casts up very long shadow. And regardless of whether or were those people who adamantly
03:16defends Jackson, even without them, as a child of the 90s, the Michael that I knew was more defined
03:21by his tabloid notoriety and baby-dangling incidents than by his music at that point.
03:27But clearly there is still an appetite for Michael Jackson, at least by some,
03:31as the 2022 Broadway jukebox musical MJ was a big success. Now that play ends just before the
03:37allegations in the early 90s and was apparently a major reason why the estate decided to go ahead
03:43with making a film about him now. So it's not a surprise then that this film would exist as a
03:47vehicle to launder the reputation of its subject, because that's the entire point for the estate.
03:52It's more just how brazen and obvious it is about that.
03:56And the funny thing is, it wasn't originally like that. The script is written by John Logan,
04:01who pens Skyfall and Star Trek Nemesis, and as reported on by Variety, the movie was originally
04:06going to confront Michael's accusations directly. The movie was going to open with Michael looking
04:12at the man in the mirror as police approached to raid the Neverland Ranch, and a significant
04:17portion of it was going to cover the 1993 trial with Jordan Chandler. Presumably it would side with
04:23Jackson and depict it as an extortion attempt. It turns out there was a clause in the settlement
04:27with Chandler that meant that he could not be depicted or mentioned in any film whatsoever to
04:32prevent him from being mischaracterised. And in a delicious bit of irony, given how litigious we've
04:38established Michael's estate is, they didn't realise this until after principal photography. Oops.
04:45Needless to say, this necessitated huge changes to the film, pushing back the release date an entire year,
04:50while he did extensive and expensive reshoots that the estate had to foot the bill for.
04:55And the amusing part is that this is a total tactical error, because if you or I were in the
05:02position of making a movie about Michael Jackson in a positive light, why would you even directly
05:07reference this stuff? If you were trying to be on the defensive, you've still got the spectre of
05:12allegations of one of the worst things a human being can do to one another. You want the audience to
05:18not be thinking of that, ideally. So now the legally approved version of Michael that has finally
05:24arrived in cinemas is pretty much what it should have been all along. Sure, it's clearly a patch
05:29word to make up for the fact that it lost the entire last act, and boy is that obvious watching
05:35it,
05:35but it doesn't even mention that stuff because it doesn't even get to that point. Arguably the best
05:41option in a no-win scenario. If you're going to make a hagiography, at least commit to it. And that's
05:48what they did when they were forced to. It's basically the music biopic equivalent of the Babe Ruth story.
05:55And if I seem to be talking a lot about what's not in the movie, then that's mostly because it's
06:00a
06:00film that's almost entirely defined by the stuff that is missing from it in various ways. Not just the
06:05massive portion of the film that they junked, but other stuff too. A lot of that is more interesting
06:10than what they did include for the most part. So the narrative that has been thrust upon the film
06:15is that it's the story of his finding his independence away from his cruel father and
06:19refusing to be defined by him. It's a conventional story, but it works. You can make a compelling
06:25film about that, but they don't. Partly because it wasn't made with that intent. It was only meant to be
06:31a
06:31piece, not the whole. Joe is clearly the villain of the story and in one of the few shocking moments
06:37in an otherwise innocuous film is that we see him beating Michael with a belt. He is a cruel man
06:43who
06:43derives his power from threatening everyone around him and violent when challenged. His behaviour is
06:49directly responsible for the insecurities that would beset Michael in his later life, as seen when he
06:55calls Michael Big Nose in a moment which is, ironically, a bit on the nose.
07:00And Coen Domingo does his best with what he can under some very strange looking makeup,
07:05and he gets a few scenes where he gets into Michael's head and under our skin,
07:10like when he challenges Michael about whether he wants to be surrounded by Yes Men. And we know that
07:15there's a bit of truth in that. But for the most part, he's an obvious one note caricature who always
07:21has the worst response to any given situation. And he's not much of an antagonist after a certain point
07:27because Michael unceremoniously gets rid of him midway through, and then he tries to control him
07:32later through the victory tour. But we always know that Michael is the one that really has the power
07:38by then. One of the weirdest things about the film, though, is how little the other Jacksons are
07:43featured in it. I know Michael eclipsed them all in popularity, but none of them are characters in
07:48this movie in a real sense. They're basically glorified extras who might not have more than a
07:53handful of lines altogether, who mostly exist as backing singers. And that's peculiar given that
07:59several of them are executive producers on the film. There's a massive missed opportunity here to
08:05explore the relationships that he had with his brothers or his sister Latoya, or how they responded
08:09to the abuse directed towards him, or the loyalty that Michael felt towards them. That could easily
08:15flesh out the whole film, but it is totally completely absent in a movie which has significant
08:21focus on his family dynamics. Something else which is absent, though, is Janet Jackson, who became a
08:26megastar in her own right, but she simply does not exist at all in the world of this film because
08:32she
08:32did not want to be featured in it. So the only other significant Jackson, aside from Joe and Michael,
08:37is his mother Catherine, played by Nia Long, who is supportive and caring towards him. There's lots
08:43of scenes of them watching old movies together, like Singing in the Rain, that are clearly not
08:47to what Michael would later use in his performances. Long arguably gets something resembling a subplot,
08:53where she gradually stands up to her husband and feels some guilt for not protecting Michael enough,
08:59but most of the time she's largely called upon to watch her son with pride. And that is primarily
09:05the role of much of the supporting cast, be it K.E. Daryl Jones as bodyguard and cofidant Bill Bray,
09:10to Miles Teller as his lawyer and manager John Branka, they're there to look at Michael and just
09:15sagely nod in approval. Branka, incidentally, is one of the producers and the co-exector of his estate
09:21to this very day. By far the strongest thing about the movie is Jafar Jackson playing his own uncle,
09:27which is a truly inspired bit of casting, because really, the only other person who could truly emulate
09:32Michael is another Jackson. And Jafar is often downright uncanny in his performance. He gets all
09:38the mannerisms and the voice down perfectly. Giuliano Valdi is also suitably adorable as
09:44younger Michael in his Jackson 5 days. But Jafar is very rarely asked by the script to actually
09:49get into his uncle's psyche, largely because there's very little real conflict after Michael
09:54earns his independence. Every choice Michael makes is the right one, and everything turns out brilliantly.
10:00The one major setback Michael suffers is the infamous 1984 incident where his scout was
10:06severely burned after an accident filming a Pepsi commercial. That would cause him to extensively
10:11use painkillers, something which the movie does gesture towards, but again doesn't commit to.
10:17There could be a narrative about Michael dealing with his pain privately as he tries to continue his
10:22professional career, but the movie avoids it once more. We get a few scenes of him recuperating in
10:28hospital, and then it just cuts to him on the victory tour later in the year. It's almost like
10:32the film isn't just avoiding controversy, it's completely conflict-averse. Michael is depicted as
10:37practically a saint. In fact, it goes to great lengths to try and sanitize his image that comes
10:42back around to being a bit creepy and strange. He accumulates a growing menagerie of animals,
10:47almost all of which are CGI, including Bubbles the Chimp, who gets a big dramatic entrance here.
10:54If I learn anything from watching Michael, it's that it's almost impossible to take any scene
10:59with Bubbles the Chimp seriously, especially when they play like the scenes from Gordy's home in
11:04Nope. One of these Bubbles moments is one of several instances where Michael reads from a Peter Pan
11:09storybook to him, and the illustrations in this book appear to have been specifically designed to have
11:14Peter resemble Michael from the 2000s. So he's looking at that, and then he's looking at himself
11:19on the cover of Off the Wall, and he's going, uh, uh, uh, and that's how he gets the idea
11:24for his first
11:25nose job. I'm not making this up! And that storybook keeps popping up as he keeps talking about his plans
11:31for, you guessed it, Neverland. And again, the ghost of who Michael Jackson would become in his
11:37later years looms large as much as the movie wants to avoid it. There's also the fact that not
11:43inconsiderable amounts of the running time is Michael personally visiting sick children on
11:47hospital wards, which makes for decidedly uncomfortable viewing if you even have a
11:50passing familiarity with the accusations towards him, or the several occasions we've seen Mickey
11:55Mouse memorabilia in clothing, or that scene where he goes on a spending spree in a toy store.
12:01These scenes are so tone deaf that they're practically inviting someone to cut them together
12:06into a horror movie trailer with sinister music. Maybe that's why the film increasingly focuses on his
12:11music. Certainly the strongest stretch is where it focuses on Michael creating the album Thriller,
12:15and the creative process behind it, not least of which is because it allows them to do recreations
12:19of the videos and dance moves, which Jafar replicates perfectly. And yes, that does include
12:25the Tile track's iconic video, which you might recall was directed by controversial Twilight Zone
12:30the movie helmer John Landis, who they've gone to the effort of hiring an excellent lookalike for,
12:35despite being mostly obscured and having hardly any dialogue. I mean, if you didn't want to depict him,
12:41why didn't you just make him a generic director? The concert scenes are also spectacular and
12:46flashily photographed, but that's the only real time you get a sense that this was directed by
12:50Antoine Fuqua, best known for Training Day in the Equalizer franchise, who otherwise seems to be
12:56working for hire. If there is an authorial all ten, then that would be the Jackson estate,
13:01and especially Bohemian Rhapsody producer Graham King, as it is clear the mandate was just to
13:06replicate that film, but with Michael Jackson. How else to explain why Mike Myers once again
13:11pops up in a cameo as a record executive, this time playing CBS Records president,
13:16Walter Yetnikov? At least in Bohemian it was a reference to Wayne's world, here it just seems
13:21like he's here to reference the earlier biopic, and once again Myers' presence is distractingly out of
13:27place, as he plays it like a comedy sketch, as he personally calls up MTV to strong arm them into
13:33playing Michael's videos, a time when the station notoriously didn't play black artists. Oh look,
13:39another potential dramatic conflict the movie could have focused on. Luckily Walter and Michael managed to
13:44solve racism in just one single scene. And as the movie increasingly goes on, the more it devolves into
13:49long montages and performances. I'm sure the target audience won't complain because this is the stuff
13:54they really want to see, and maybe deep down, what they actually want is a pseudo-concert film,
14:00rather than anything with the pretense of narrative. But it also gives the impression of a movie which
14:05is trying to ride out the clock with the footage that they can still use, especially because for all
14:12that time they spent reworking the film with four created actors trying to do triage, it doesn't have an
14:18ending. It just crashes to an abrupt halt. The last scene of the movie is Michael at Wembley
14:24performing bad on stage, which is already jarring because the movie has just done a massive time
14:29jump from the Victory Tour in 84 to this. So they skipped over four years at the height of his
14:35career
14:35just for the sake of one song, and then cut to black. The movie concludes with a title card that
14:41says,
14:41his story continues. Roll credits. It's the most hilariously abrupt ending since The Devil Inside.
14:49Obviously this is meant to be a tease for a sequel, and the filmmakers have said they plan to use
14:53some
14:53of the discarded footage in that, but apparently they never came up with a better ending than just
14:58three words which simultaneously A make him sound like the Messiah, B weirdly implies that Michael Jackson is
15:04still alive, and C sounds more like a threat. And what kind of sequel bait is that anyway? Yeah,
15:11comeback for part two, where his career and reputation is derailed by personal scandal and
15:16heinous accusations, puts himself in debt, and then dies on the eve of a comeback. That might be the least
15:22enticing prospect of all time. Maybe they should have taken a page out of Walk Hard and just ended it
15:27with a caption, Michael Jackson died three minutes after this performance. Michael the film arrives as a
15:33misshapen mess that clearly shows its numerous post-production difficulties as you would expect
15:38of a film that had to jersen its entire framing device after the fact. I do think it could make
15:43a
15:43great film about Michael Jackson because on the one hand, he was an exceptional and hugely influential
15:48musician that was once the most famous celebrity in the world. On the other hand, he was a victim of
15:54abuse who lost his childhood to fame and was clearly a very damaged person privately and has repeatedly
16:00been accused of continuing that cycle of abuse. But this was never going to be that movie, not with
16:07the estate involved. I doubt that movie would ever get made, in all honesty. But Michael isn't even the
16:14best version of what it is, paling in comparison to numerous documentaries on the subject. Michael's
16:20own daughter Paris was not involved with the film and called the script sugar-coated. I'd go one step
16:25further, it's all sugar. It's cinematic candy floss and just as fluffy and insubstantial. It's not a
16:32movie that's going to change your opinion of the divisive pop star, but even his fans might notice the
16:37absences and major dramatic liberties the film makes. I do find it very ironic that attached to the film
16:43is a special trailer for the upcoming scary movie, which is making innuendos about how Michael Jackson
16:49touched his fans. So even on a movie deliberately designed to avoid it, that's still inescapable.
16:56That trailer's arguably more subversive than the terrible looking spoof itself will likely be.
17:01But even overlooking the elephant in the room, and even with the music and Jafar Jackson's
17:06Kameer performance, it's a drama that's only slightly less fantastical than Moonwalker.
17:11Who's bad? This movie, that's what.
17:14If you like this review and you want to support my work, you can give me a tip on my
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17:18or with YouTube's Super Thanks feature which is right below the video.
17:21Or you can moonwalk over to my Patreon, where you can see my videos early among other perks,
17:26including access to my Discord server, and you can also join YouTube memberships for similar perks.
17:31Or you can just simply like, share, and hype the video. It really does help.
17:35Until next time, I'm Matthew Buck, fading out.
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