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notnixon.com · @notnixon.com@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Michael 5/10

Whoa boy! I wasn't sure I should go to see Michael. An estate-approved Michael Jackson biopic with the family as executive producers felt icky from the off, even for someone like me who thinks his early solo music is pretty magical. I went anyway. That was a rookie error! The film just left me feeling angry. The film falls into every bad biopic trap going. Endless foreshadowing and pretending MJ had no flaws are big crimes, but unforgivably, it wasn’t even really a story about Michael Jackson. We’re just presented with a fancy PowerPoint of things that famously happened to him. John Logan's script does nothing with any of it, and Fuqua's direction gives it nowhere emotional to land. Colman Domingo's Joe Jackson dominates the film. He's a brutal character, but he's also at the centre of almost every scene, even when he's not on screen. It’s a great performance but for a film called Michael, that’s a problem. It probably won’t surprise you that the women in this story are minimised and sidelined. Janet Jackson doesn't exist in this version of events. La Toya is no more than a background character. Katherine Jackson is the most prominent female character, and she's referred to only as Mother, never by name. Jaafar Jackson's physical performance is remarkable, and he deserves real credit for it. The music is exceptional too, but that existed before this film and will hopefully outlast it. Even setting aside what came later, which this film *very much* does, this does Michael Jackson a disservice. They could have told a story about how he channelled that childhood trauma into something transcendent.  They could have given the viewers something tangible about how the music got made. How did Off the Wall happen? What was it like in the room when Thriller was coming together? There are glimpses of Michael working with Quincy Jones, but the film never stays long enough to show you anything real about the creative process. It tells you he was a genius by playing you the songs. It never shows you what that genius actually looked like up close. What was done to Michael obviously manifested in ways that were dark and deeply troubling. This film doesn't need to tell that story, but it does need to reckon with it. They obfuscated it all by telling Joe Jackson's story...and fuck that guy.

#movie

Published 2026-05-04 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere