Since the success of Bohemian Rhapsody during award season (even if it didn’t necessarily deserve it) and at the box office, we’ve had a steady increase as studios try to replicate the success, seemingly happy to stick to a basic formula, often feeling lazy, knowing that they can do a bare minimum and get fans in seats. This has lead to ones that break that formula to stand out more, like Rocketman, Better Man, Elvis rather than I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Bob Marley: One Love, Back to Black, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. It’s clear that the films that manage to stand the test of time offer something more unique. This is always where Michael was going to have its big test, will it break the mould enough to stand out in a formulaic genre.
Michael tells the story of the life of Michael Jackson. From his childhood when he was part of the band with his brothers, The Jackson 5, as a child, to breaking away from them and becoming a solo act as he breaks records, attempting to become the best artist in the world, and please his family.
Like I said in the opening paragraph, we’ve had a fair few of these type of films down the years, and there certainly seems to be a formula. Does Michael do anything new to break that? No. The biggest issue with this film particularly isn’t even what some people think that this film is missing, which is the contreversy and allegations against him. The film straight up has a bad script, or at the very most was ruined in the edit. Writer, John Logan has had a great career being nominated for 3 Oscars including Gladiator and Hugo. The pacing particularly in the film is odd. The film spends long periods of time focusing on a couple of his biggest songs, and the creations of those, when it would be infinitely more effective focusing on the person, and his conflict, dealing with his problems, rather than almost brushing them aside with relative ease. It truly feels like a film that’s going to be chopped up even more and put as clips on TikTok.
The performances are huge positive. Jaafar Jackson portrays his uncle in what is his first acting credit, and truly does a fantastic job. Obviously he has an inside source, who saw a lot more of Michael than most, so no doubt would’ve been instrumental, and he has spoken about how much time and effort, and also pressure he would’ve felt. Colman Domingo is one of the best actors working currently, every single performance he gives, he is demanding your attention and delivering. He plays Joe Jackson’s, Michael’s controlling father, a role that unfortunately feels 2 dimensional, but Domingo does well with what he can.
Director, Antoine Fuqua has had some greats hit with all 3 The Equalizer films and Training Day, but also done the likes of The Magnificent 7 and Infinite which were both commercial and critical flops. This one is guarenteed certainly to be a commercial success, and is already at almost a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide. The film is about such a beloved icon of the industry, no matter the quality of the film it was only going to be one of the biggest films of the year. And the general audience reception has been fantastic heavily praising it, but I truly believe these are people that would’ve loved it regardless as long as it had his music in.
I particularly want to touch on how disappointing the cinematography was. Director of Photography, Dion Beebe has an Oscar win for Memoirs of a Geisha in 2006 (a film I’ve not seen), and hasn’t gone onto do anything of note. He might have been DP for multiple decent films, but his cinematography has never stood, and in a film that at times struggles with some of the worst look CGI crowds I’ve ever seen.
Overall, it’s interesting to see what they did with this film but it ultimately fails at being special in a crowded genre. There is no denying the story of Michael Jackson, but fails to give him any character development, and just sees him as a flawless musical genius, that just wanted to be free to do what he wanted. Strong performances, and the odd strong music set piece keeps the film watchable, but choosing to slow down for unengaging moments, and what feels like some hamfisted cheesey moments. Don’t worry I’m sure they will fix all these films for the sequel, which isn’t due to start filming until next year, after the heavily wink moment at the end where it says “his story continues”.
What did you think of Michael?
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