Critics have pulled no punches when it comes to the new Michael Jackson biopic.
The Billie Jean star’s nephew Jaafar Jackson takes the lead for most of the new movie, Michael, which was made in co-operation with the late singer’s estate.
As a result, the project has been described as “sanitised” by unimpressed critics, who have given it a smattering of one- and two-star reviews.
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Indeed, many have taken issue with the fact that Michael ends in the late 1980s, meaning most of the controversies surrounding its subject – including multiple allegations of child sex abuse – are not broached.
However, it should be pointed out that the film hasn’t been unanimously slated, with numerous critics for some of the leading American entertainment outlets generally praising Michael.
Ahead of its release late this week, here’s a selection of what critics are saying about Michael…
“It’s bad. It’s bad. It’s really, really bad. The new Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, is produced by several of his relatives and close associates, so no one expected it to be a searing portrait of the controversial star. But it’s still surprising that they’ve made such a bland and barely competent daytime TV movie.”
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“Antoine Fuqua’s demi-biopic of Michael Jackson gives you the chimp, the llama, the giraffe… but not the elephant in the living room […] this is a frustratingly shallow, inert picture, a kind of cruise-ship entertainment, which can’t quite bring itself to show that Michael was an abuse victim, brutalised by his father and robbed of his childhood. Perhaps this is because it would have a cause-and-effect implication, gesturing tactlessly at the story’s second half…”
Glen Wilson/Lionsgate
“It resists story in favour of content, in making sure fans see what they expect to see, whether that be the Thriller video or Bad performed live at Wembley in 1988. In that respect, it’s hardly unique, but there’s a particular ghoulishness in applying that mentality to a figure as profoundly complex as Jackson.”
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“Hugely impressive musical and dance performances from the two young men playing Michael Jackson cannot shake off the uncomfortable fact that there is an entire other side to the pop star’s story which is entirely conspicuous by its absence here.”
“This is the quintessential Trump-era film, where difficult truths are met with bold-faced mendacity and where the director Antoine Fuqua and the screenwriter John Logan have met the challenges of the Jackson story by simply drowning it in quasi-Christian […] bullshit.”
“Michael is a Part One that pretends its Part Two doesn’t exist: a structurally complete film that tells only half a story […] it is simply not credible for a film to claim to be about Michael Jackson without addressing, even obliquely, the accusations, controversies and sadness that dogged his later life. You don’t have to dramatise these things; you should, at least, acknowledge or foreshadow them.”
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“This is a film made by people who appear not to know the meaning of the word ‘subtle’ […] it goes on, drifting from one underwritten scene to the next, airbrushing incidents and figures integral to them, for fear they get in the way of keeping the spotlight on Michael in admittedly impressively staged musical sequences or, less impressively, mawkish utterances about making the world a better place.”
Kevin Mazur/Lionsgate
“This isn’t really a biopic. This is the Passion of St. Michael, rendered with great fidelity to and emphasis on both Jackson’s undeniable suffering and equally undeniable talent.”
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“That Michael skirts around the controversies, legal troubles, and horrifying allegations that marked the entertainer’s later years – and, for so many, have forever marred his legacy – isn’t a shock, as the film was supported and financially backed by Jackson’s estate.
“What does rankle, however, is that that by glossing over such matters, the final film has been mostly stripped of any humanity, good and bad.”
“As magnetic as Jaafar Jackson is during the film’s musical performances, he still can’t quite capture his uncle’s protean, preternatural talents […] but even if he had, it would still be difficult to ignore just how much this almost surreally upbeat biopic looks at Michael Jackson with blinders on, turning the realities of a tragic, deeply complicated life into a sanitised popcorn film.”
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