Michael (dir. Antoine Fuqua)

By: Adam Freed

When it comes to the otherworldly ability to unify an audience with a transcendent voice and entertainment style, Michael Jackson stands alone in music history.  There will very likely never be a performer whose global fame and following reach quite the same fever pitch that Jackson accomplished from the late 70’s to the mid 90’s.  And for all of the good that Jackson did as an entertainer and philanthropist, Antoine Fuqua’s sanitized and sterile Michael Jackson biopic Michael does very little to elevate the stature of the late king of pop, that couldn’t be accomplished with the release of another greatest hits album. The most damning error that Michael makes is painting its titular hero as an unblemished and unrelenting purveyor of joy, free of the shortcomings that come along with the territory of being classified as human.

To say that Michael is unabashed fan service is an understatement. With a runtime north of two hours Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer) opens his music biopic by methodically painting the origin story of the Jackson 5 in which it is clear early that Michael, the quintet’s youthful standout front man had gifts that far outpace the limitations of the word talent.  Most remarkable in the film’s early stages is the performance of newcomer Juliano Valdi (Arco), who embodies a young Jackson with the pronounced physicality and vocal lift to match the pop star's career launchpad.  The counterpunch to the film’s undersized protagonist is the omnipresence of his demanding father Joseph Jackson, portrayed by Coleman Domingo (Rustin, The Running Man), a gifted performer reduced to a static character under the weight of some rather unfortunate prosthetic work.

As Michael marches through its rather predictable second act, Jackson, now an adult, is proficiently captured by his real life nephew Jaafar Jackson.  Jaafar depicts his uncle as a childlike and joyful purveyor of happiness, a man who, even as an adult, seems to struggle with shedding the cloak of childlike wonder. The difficulty that this creates in narrative storytelling, however, is that it does not allow much breathing room for character growth when the overly simplistic depiction of the superstar boils down to a gifted young man tormented by a demanding and abusive father. By way of dramatic stakes, this leaves Michael feeling far less complex than the layered and, at times, tumultuous nature of the King of Pop’s actual existence.  Much of Jackson’s well publicized legal battles and personal hardships have been completely redacted from Fuqua’s production, leaving behind a film that feels more akin to watching a high quality character impersonation.  

Michael is the type of film that is likely to please people in search of a trip to the theater to unearth some favorite musical memories of the past. Yet one cannot escape the feeling that audiences would be better served with a YouTube deep dive into Jackson’s career highlights than being fed a sterile story that omits any semblance of the flawed complexities of a man who also happened to be blessed with extraordinary musical gifts.  Despite its best efforts to do so, Michael cannot escape the glaring holes present within its narrative, no matter how many sequined gloves and moonwalks it throws at the issue.

Target Score 4.5/10 – Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson music biopic Michael boasts an impressive catalogue of The King of Pop’s hits and performances, but one has to question what is to be gained from a Jackson puff piece in lieu of a film that offers any semblance of narrative stakes.