Michael is the highly anticipated biopic of Michael Jackson.
Finally arriving in theatres this week, the film had a dramatic six-year journey to the big screen.
Before we get into the film, it’s important to go through some of the drama to put the film we eventually got into context.
The first thing you need to know is that the project is the brainchild of film producer Graham King, best known for producing the hit 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which made $910 million and won four Academy Awards. Michael was made with the full cooperation of the Michael Jackson estate and most of the Jackson family members (more on that later).
Production kicked off in 2019 but hit major snags along the way, including the 2023 Sag-Aftra strike. But the biggest snag came about because the film was originally intended to include some of the child abuse allegations against Michael.
But a legal agreement tied to the 1993 Jordan Chandler case meant that they had to remove this part of the story. Chandler was an alleged abuse victim of Michael’s. He was 13 years old when the abuse is said to have occurred. The lawsuit his family brought against Michael was settled out of court in 1994.
The result was costly script rewrites and reshoots and a decision to end the story in the late ’80s, before the allegations surfaced. Ultimately, Michael cost somewhere between $155m and $200m to make. There’s some speculation that not all the extra footage will go to waste and that the producers intend to start production on a sequel. The fact that Michael ends with the words “His story continues” lends some credence to this theory.
As for the film itself, is it any good? Well, that depends on what you want out of a music biopic. The film covers Michael’s life for roughly 22 years, from 1966 when he was eight years old and performing with his elder brothers as part of the Jackson 5 to 1988 when he was deep into his solo career and on tour promoting his Bad album. For me, that’s the main problem.
I’ve always preferred a biopic that focuses on one period of anywhere from a few weeks to a year of the person’s life rather than a cradle-to-the-grave approach to storytelling.
More than two decades of life is a lot to cover in a two-hour film and as a result, Michael ends up feeling more like a highlight reel than an exploration of the man behind the myth.
Watching it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they wrote the script by compiling several iconic moments of Michael either recording in studio, shooting music videos or performing his most recognisable songs from this period.
The narrative of Michael interacting with the people in his orbit seems to have been written to bridge us from one iconic moment to the next.
Michael recorded Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough with Quincy Jones producing. Tick. Michael shot the music video for Thriller with John Landis directing. Tick. Michael performed Billie Jean at the Motown 25 special and moonwalked on stage for the first time. Tick. All the moments we know and love are there as if cycling through a checklist of events.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing all these moments in the theatre. For multiple generations of people, including my own, the moments are etched into our hearts and minds, so there was definitely a feeling of joy that came from seeing them recreated for the IMAX screen. But, at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, after a while it all started to feel repetitive and I wondered if what the film was doing would be better achieved with a solid documentary containing real footage.
That’s no disrespect to what director Antoine Fuqua and his team managed to achieve with this film, though. I have to acknowledge that the casting choice of Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s nephew, was inspired. The son of Jermaine Jackson captures his uncle’s speech patterns, mannerisms, singing and dancing with remarkable accuracy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the young man earns a Best Leading Actor Oscar nomination for his performance, which is his first in any film by the way.
Colman Domingo also does solid work as Joe Jackson, Michael’s ambitious yet tyrannical father and manager.
Nia Long is criminally underused as Katherine Jackson. As are Kendrick Sampson as Quincy Jones and Larenz Tate as Berry Gordy. Interestingly, every member of the Jackson family is portrayed in the film except for Janet. As the second most popular breakout star of the clan and the sibling closest to Michael, both in terms of age and connection, her absence is felt.
There’s no official word on why she isn’t in the film but it is interesting to note that she’s close to Michael’s daughter Paris who is pursuing legal action against the co-executors of the Michael Jackson estate who also happen to be two of the producers of the Michael film (more on that soon).
Also absent is Diana Ross who was a critical mentor and mother figure for young Michael as he navigated the music industry.
In a rather self-serving move, the role of John Branca is played by Miles Teller who, apart from Joe Jackson, probably shares the most screentime with Michael.
Branca took over as Michael’s manager after Michael fired his father, Joe, from the position. Today he is one of the two co-executors of the Michael Jackson estate and chairperson of The Michael Jackson Company.
He’s also one of the three producers of Michael. Paris Jackson is in a legal dispute with Branca and his co-executor John McClain, alleging financial mismanagement, high fees and improper investments.
She challenges their handling of funds and oversight of the estate, while Branca and McClain claim they turned a debt-ridden estate into a $2 billion entity. But we’re getting caught up in the drama again. Back to the film.
If I had to sum up the core conflict of Michael it would be this: A young Michael Jackson is determined to become the greatest musician of all time but his domineering father insists that he continue making music and performing as part of a group with his brothers.
There’s potential for an interesting dramatic story there but the film doesn’t spend much time on the father-son dynamic.
What’s more, the film also doesn’t spend time exploring what drove Michael to want to become the greatest musician of all time in the first place.
It treats this ambition as an obvious and self-evident part of the man’s trajectory, ignoring the opportunity to spend time exploring Michael’s psyche.
It gestures at Michael’s insecurities about his appearance which lead to cosmetic surgeries but only briefly. It hints at race through a scene in which he pushes for the Thriller music video to be played on MTV despite the station rarely playing videos by black artists but doesn’t go further.
There are any number of deep themes from the life of Michael Jackson that the film can’t slow down long enough to investigate with real curiosity and nuance.
It’s a sprint to the finish that left me wondering what, if anything, I had learnt about Michael as a human being.
Many people will certainly be satisfied to relive some of the King of Pop’s most memorable moments in a cinema and if the success of Bohemian Rhapsody is any indication, Michael seems poised to make more than a billion dollars.
But I can’t help but feel that there could have been more.
The long-awaited ‘Michael’ biopic dazzles with iconic recreations and a star-making performance but struggles to uncover the man behind the legend
