After seeing Michael, the new Michael Jackson biopic, I can only imagine what the pitch session must have been like: Let’s make a movie about Michael Jackson, the famously talented, weird, and controversial pop star—and under no circumstances will we say or even hint anything even slightly interesting about Michael Jackson. I am tempted to say this movie plays like a Wikipedia entry with a soundtrack, but even that gives it too much credit. Wikipedia pages on famous personages almost always have a section labeled “controversies.”
This brutally dull movie dodges even the smallest speed bumps in its subject’s life, smoothing out Jackson’s path to pop stardom like the cinematic equivalent of a Zamboni machine, lest it be accused of having even a modicum of perspective or insight into one of the most fascinating entertainers in history. It’s as bland as hospital food. And before it’s over you might find yourself wishing for a terminal event. Michael? It should have been called Mehchael.
Yes, there’s a conflict, of sorts, about Jackson’s relationship with his difficult, overbearing father, who berated the singer as a boy and tried to control him as an adult. But that subplot barely scratches the surface of the strangeness and abuse Jackson’s father is alleged to have wrought. This is no thriller.
Granted, the movie was produced under circumstances that would have made a more honest movie unlikely. Jackson’s estate was involved, which likely accounts for some of the softening of the family’s traumas. And after the shooting was complete, the movie had to be completely revamped, because the conclusion was prohibited by a legal agreement. As The Wall Street Journal reported, originally “the final third of the movie dealt with a 1993 lawsuit filed on behalf of a 13-year-old boy who alleged that the pop star had molested him, which Jackson denied.” The Jackson estate realized only after initial filming was complete that the settlement reached with the accuser’s family prohibited any commercial use. Legally, they couldn’t tell, er, his story, so they renovated the film to revolve around Jackson’s conflicts with his controlling father. But that conflict has been so sanitized that it may as well not exist.
What’s left, then, is the music, especially the early 1980s megahits that made Jackson a superstar. Jackson’s early solo records are unimpeachable, particularly Thriller, which might indeed be the greatest pure pop record of all time.
Produced by the great Quincy Jones and stacked with ebullient, interlocking rhythms, it’s a genuine sonic masterpiece, recorded on an essentially unlimited budget at what was more or less the peak of the analog era. If nothing else, Michael should have been an opportunity to play those tracks for audiences who have never heard the album in its full sonic glory. (If you’ve never heard “Beat It” on really good speakers, please, do so.)
Sadly, Michael buries the music in modernized surround-sound mixes, masking key musical moments with dialogue. Sure, it sounds better than a basic pair of earbuds, but this is a candidate for single best-sounding pop album ever. Not only does Michael display zero interest in the technical aspects of its production, it doesn’t even present the recordings faithfully.
This is a movie so lazy and listless I can’t even accuse it of genuine disrespect. It’s just idea-less, frictionless, perspectiveless, and lifeless. The only thing interesting about it is in the negative zone of what it doesn’t say—anything at all.
