Michael Review

So the new Michael biopic is out about the one and only Michael Jackson. I don't need to go into a deep dive about the plot because everyone knows who Michael Jackson is. Now Rotten Tomatoes gave Michael a Rotten score and fans were furious about this so I decided to wait to see this film myself to be up and arms.

Michael covers the King Of Pops career from the Jackson 5 until his Bad career. While this movie is madly entertaining and it had my whole theater singing/dancing which is always fun. Michael Jackson is a global superstar and the fact that this movie is resorted to 2 hours instead of a more reasonable approach to capture his entire career (3 to 3 & a half hours) is just completely ridiculous to me. Deciding to split Michael's career into two separate films instead of tackling his whole career in 3 hours or more was a bad idea.

Colman Domingo plays Joseph Jackson and he is excellent. If you know anything about the Jackson family you know that Joe Jackson wasn't just abusive to Michael but to all of his other siblings as well. Colman Domingo is excellent at portraying this cold, selfish, relentless side of Michael's father that was just scary to watch. I wouldn't be surprised if Domingo earned a Best Male Actor In A Supporting Role nom at next year’s award show.

Jaafar Jackson was absolutely excellent as his uncle Michael and when you see the film you're absolutely going to believe you are seeing the real Michael perform. Something that tends to hurt a lot of biopic films is that you can tell that the actor is trying too hard to impersonate who they are portraying instead of embodying the person. However, this is not one of those instances because like I said you will totally forget that you are watching a “performance” so to speak.

Pros: acting performances, costume design, musical performances & hair/makeup design. Cons: it's too short, focuses too much on Joseph instead of Michael & it ends just when it's getting good. I don’t think that Michael deserves a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes but I do understand the criticisms with this film. Sorry, Michael fans but this is one of the few times where I think the trailer is better than the movie itself.

Honestly, I would say this is more “disappointing” than “terrible” due to everything I mentioned in my cons list. If you want to be entertained then you will absolutely eat this film up. But if you are going into this film wanting to know Michael Jackson the person then you will be disappointed with the final product because other than his “daddy” issues with Joe and his emotional attachment to animals you won't learn a lot from this film.

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️