Reviews of the Bosch

Nine times out of ten when a biopic is made with the participation of the subject’s estate or family, it is not worth very much. It is virtually guaranteed to be a hagiographic puff piece that whitewashes the less flattering, more controversial aspects of the subject’s biography. And arguably no biopic has been as blatant in this as Michael , directed by Antoine Fuqua, which bleaches its story as thoroughly as Michael Jackson did his pigment. The Jackson family power is on display so starkly and shamelessly that it is Michael’s own nephew stepping into the titular moonwalking shoes, and the structure of the film is so haphazard in order to avoid difficult topics that it becomes almost a parody. You can feel the scrapped third act very starkly, the search for some kind of conflict that doesn’t taint the image of Michael Jackson, the once-in-a-generation pop genius. Michael Jackson very much was this, but he was also something else far more complicated and it is disingenuous not to inter...