Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Jaafar Jackson, Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Laura Harrier, Juliano Krue Valdi, Miles Teller
The first talkie, 1927's The Jazz Singer, was a musical drama featuring offensive makeup. Arriving a century later is another story of a young man's rise in the world of music. Michael doesn't feature any problematic makeup, just bad makeup. Distractingly awful makeup, the stuff of nightmares even. Michael Jackson's fake nose here gives him the appearance of British kids' TV ghoul Worzel Gummidge. His father Joe Jackson looks like Little Richard rendered as a Bo' Selecta! character. As entertainment manager John Branca, Miles Teller looks like he might melt if you held a candle to his face. I guess Rick Baker, the genius makeup artist behind Thriller, wasn't available.
That terrible makeup aside, there is nothing offensively awful about Michael. It's as formulaic a musical biopic as you could imagine, a very expensive karaoke show padded out with a few dramatised Wikipedia bullet points. But Antoine Fuqua's tabloid direction ensures it zips along, and I was actually surprised to find I had been sitting in my seat for two hours when the credits rolled.
The movie takes the clichéd approach of a musician remembering their life up to that point just before they go on stage for some legendary show. That point here is Michael Jackson's 1988 concert at Wembley Stadium. The movie ends in 1988 for the same reason Tim Burton's Ed Wood climaxes with the premiere of Plan 9 from Outer Space, as things get very grim from that point.
The core of the drama is centred on Michael's attempts to free himself from the tyrannical reign of his physically abusive father Joe (Colman Domingo). The movie quickly runs through the early years, in which young Michael (Juliano Krue Valdi) fronts The Jackson Five, a band made up of the prodigious singer and four of his older brothers. Signed to Motown, the quintet becomes a global sensation and a cash cow for Joe. By 1978 Michael (now played by Michael's nephew Jaafar Jackson) is entering adulthood and wants to strike out on his own. Teaming up with legendary producer Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson), he records his first solo album and arguably the greatest pop album of all time, Off the Wall, but Joe isn't willing to let his golden goose slip away that easily. As Michael's solo stardom increases, Joe hovers over him like a vulture.
Jaafar's performance is a mixed bag. He's far from a natural actor, and in some scenes you can almost hear the director offscreen prompting him to gaze into the middle distance. But he's certainly got the moves, and you can tell he's been working day and night to impress us with his fancy foot work. The movie comes alive whenever Jackson walks out on stage, whether played by Jaafar or the equally fleet of foot Valdi, who is more convincing in his dramatic moments than Jaafar. The moment I knew I was hooked and willing to overlook the film's cheesiness came when Michael works on the dance routine for the Beat It video, Jaafar pulling out the sort of moves that would put most of us in traction.
There are plenty of odd omissions that may puzzle fans. The movie cuts from 1984 to 1988, completely ignoring the Bad album (thankfully we have a great Spike Lee doc to fill in those blanks). Jackson's creative collaborators are given short shrift, Quincy Jones reduced to moving a few sliders around a mixing desk while songwriter Rod Temperton is nowhere to be seen. Key chapters, like Michael's battle to have his music videos played on the racist MTV, are reduced to simplistic scenes.
Like so many music biopics it fails to shed light on its subject's creative process. When it comes to Michael's influences, John Logan's uninspired script adopts a "tell, don't show" approach. Michael talks about James Brown, Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin, but the movie never shows us how he translated their influence (along with Bob Fosse, unmentioned here) into his work, save for a quick shot of young Michael attempting to copy the Godfather of Soul's dance moves on his living room's shag carpet.
Back in the Swing era of the '30s and '40s, Hollywood's studios realised they could make a lot of money by building movies around the big bands of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey et al. Seeing these musicians on a cinema screen was the closest most punters could get to enjoying their music with an audience of fellow fans. In recent years we've seen something similar emerge with biopics of dead musicians. Bohemian Rhapsody, which culminated in a recreation of Queen's famous Live Aid appearance, gave Freddie Mercury fans a chance to feel what it might have been like to witness him perform in front of a captivated crowd. Of course, Rami Malek is no Freddie Mercury and Jaafar Jackson is no Michael Jackson, but if you think of Michael as an alternative to seeing one of those Australian tribute bands it makes for a fun night out for Jackson fans. If you want something a little meatier, Michael is less "This is It" and more "Is that it?".
Michael is in UK/ROI cinemas from April 22nd.
