Michael

I’m not a die-hard Michael Jackson fan, but I would say that I’m a big fan of his and I really do enjoy his music and think he’s one of the greatest artists of all time. That being said, I was a little worried about seeing this biopic because usually they’re not the best and they gloss over a lot of major events. And I was nervous seeing this movie because from the trailer, it looked promising, but then I saw that it was getting a lot of negative reviews. So when I saw it in theaters, I was trying to have very low expectations. The one thing that I think makes a biopic work is how well the actors portray the people they’re portraying. And I must say, Jaafar Jackson kills it as Michael. I feel like he just embodied him and not only did he look like him, his mannerisms and the way he spoke was just spot on. Throughout the movie, I wasn’t even thinking, “Oh, this is Jaafar as Michael Jackson.” To me, it just felt like I was watching Michael himself. That’s how great Jaafar was in this movie, and it’s just amazing that he did so well for his first role. Coleman Domingo was great as Joe Jackson also. He looked exactly like him and was able to channel his scumminess when it came to trying to exploit Michael and his brothers for money. I even liked the actor who played Michael’s driver, Bill, and was surprised that it was his first acting role too. Even the actor who played young Michael was amazing. The music and the scenes where he’s performing were the best scenes in the movie. Yes, I know that they probably played the whole song in the movie to make up for some of the things that were cut out, but still, it was really fucking good and entertaining. Because Jaafar embodied Michael so well, I just felt so entranced by the performances. And it was just great to hear the music, because it’s great fucking music. And I loved that they were the exact replicas of the original performances. That just shows the amount of effort they put into making sure the performances were perfect. Even seeing the audience go absolutely crazy and even to the point where people fainted and had to be escorted out just shows the amount of star power he had at that time. Now, of course I know that this biopic isn’t perfect and because it was made by his family, a lot of things were going to be sanitized and glossed over. And I feel like a lot of things were missed, especially in the beginning of the movie. For example, I feel like there was probably like 15 minutes that was just focused on The Jackson 5 and that was it? And then it just immediately jumps to him as an adult. I feel like some more time should be spent on The Jackson 5 and the time in between that and before he released Off The Wall, because he did release some music in between and Off The Wall isn’t even his first solo album. Hell, I would even like to know about Michael’s relationship with his brothers, because they were barely shown throughout the movie and had very few lines. We only got a glimpse into his relationship with his brothers when none of them wanted to play Twister with him. There was also a passing line where Jermaine wasn’t going to be a part of The Jackson 5 reunion and I wish that got explored more because I knew there was a point of contention between Michael and Jermaine. Of course, I feel like I’m just wishing for more of this stuff because I’ve seen The Jacksons: An American Dream so much when I was a kid, so I learned a lot about the formation of The Jackson 5. I also felt like this movie was a look into Michael Jackson as a person but I feel like they even could have gone deeper with that as well. They kept alluding to Michael as having a special gift and it’s his “destiny” to become the biggest artist in the world. And he was extremely talented; I loved that they isolated his vocals when he sang, because you could just feel the power in his voice. And I loved seeing the way he thought about his music and just seeing how his creativity worked, especially with how the Thriller album was made. I even loved seeing how he was just coming up with new ideas when he was filming the music video for Thriller and just thinking about his dance moves with Beat It. Like it was just so cool seeing how his mind worked when it came to his music and I would love to see more of that. I also liked that they touch upon his eccentricities as well, like his love for classic movies, children’s toys, and animals. But even then, I feel like there’s only small blips of that. Like even Bubbles wasn’t shown that much and he was a big part of Michael’s life. Also, they keep showing him always being at children’s hospitals and spending so much time with them because they’re the only ones who could relate to him. I would like to see that being explored more, but I feel like it’s going to allude to the controversies surrounding him in the next movie. Now clearly, the main point of the movie was Michael being dealing with the abuse and exploitation of his father and trying to break free from it as he becomes a solo artist. He slowly gets there, but usually it’s through the higher ups in his label or through his lawyer. It wasn’t until he really looked Joe in the eye and said that the Victory Tour was the final tour that he was going to do with his brothers since he just wanted to be on his own. After that scene though, I was really frustrated that after he stood up to his father, it just ended with a performance of Bad and it just abruptly ended. To me, that just made it seem like Bad wasn’t as important of an album as Off The Wall and Thriller. I feel like they should have just ended the movie as Michael standing up to Joe and then starting the next movie with him making the Bad album, now that he was truly on his own. Do I think that it's the perfect biopic? No, I do think there was a lot of stuff from his life that was cut out that I wish were expanded more. However, I still enjoyed this movie and would probably watch it again, just because the performances and the musical numbers alone were worth it for me. I’m curious to see how they will continue his life story in the next movie, since that’s going to basically cover the later part of his life, which is when the controversy surrounding his life starts.