Whatever you think of him personally, Michael Jackson was undeniably one of show business’ greatest ever performers, possibly the greatest in my lifetime. It sure would be awesome if someone made a movie about him.
Alas, Michael isn’t it. It isn’t a movie at all. Director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan have tossed out all elements of pacing, plot, character development, and everything else that would make this into a semblance of a story. I don’t envy their task of having to make something that meets the approval of the Jackson family and their lawyers. That would hamstring most filmmakers, and it leaves these ones with very little to do except play the hits.
The story picks up with Joseph Jackson (Colman Domingo) already coaching his five sons as a musical act in Gary, Ind., in 1966. The film’s timeline takes us through little Michael (Juliano Valdi) growing up into a man and a solo artist (played by Michael Jackson’s real-life nephew, Jaafar Jackson) and follows him through the making of Off the Wall and Thriller, with an epilogue during his Bad tour.
The movie is so Michael-centric that you’d never guess that he had a sister named Janet Jackson who would go on to score her own hits. As for his older brothers, you’ll need a scorecard to keep them straight. Jackson’s estimable mentors and collaborators like Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate) and Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson) are given little more than cameos here. And maybe this is just me, but I was disappointed when the movie entirely skipped over Michael’s performance as the Scarecrow in The Wiz.
You might think that focusing so much on the man at the center would at least result in some insight into his psychology or his creative processes. No such luck — Michael watches a Vincent Price horror film and in the very next scene, he’s in his zombie makeup dancing in the “Thriller” video, and that’s pretty much it for one of the most influential music videos in history. Given how many people tell Michael that he isn’t like anyone else, I can’t believe Fuqua and Logan missed the chance to show him watching E.T. and writing “Someone in the Dark” because he felt so much like Steven Spielberg’s space alien. Spike Lee’s 2013 documentary Bad25 gives us so much more insight into what made Michael Jackson such an innovative musician.
“God gave me these songs,” Michael says, “And if I don’t sing them, He’ll give ’em to Prince.” That’s a funny line, and it’s pretty much the only acknowledgment of the larger musical landscape that Michael Jackson landed in. The story gives us no idea of what made Michael Jackson the transformative star that he was. That insularity makes the movie feel airless, and if that’s an accurate depiction of what life in a pop-music superstar’s orbit is like, the film doesn’t do anything with it. Michael himself comes off as a cipher, so what hope do the other characters have?
The filmmakers have stated that they will address the controversial aspects of Jackson’s fame (including the pedophilia allegations lodged against him before and after his death) in a planned upcoming sequel. If they do, that’s fine, but ignoring those doesn’t help the movie that’s opening in theaters this week. The erratic behavior that characterized Jackson’s later years becomes an innocuous running gag about Bubbles the chimpanzee in this movie. Nor do we get anything on how Jackson reacted the rumors of homosexuality that swirled around him — in the 1980s, that was nearly as big a career-killer as pedophilia.
What does this movie have? The songs hold up well, though you scarcely need me to tell you that. Both Valdi and Jaafar Jackson are great at imitating the King of Pop’s dance moves, which is no small achievement. They can’t make Michael much more than a nostalgia act, and I’ve never had much use for those. Perhaps that sequel will be the searching and unflinching biography that Jackson surely warrants. I wouldn’t lay money on it, though.
Michael
Starring Jaafar Jackson and Colman Domingo. Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Written by John Logan. Rated PG-13.
