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 interrogate that. But even taking out of the equation all of the accusations and allegations around what really went on at Neverland (something hard to do given how often the Peter Pan Neverland is spotlighted as a conceptual north star of personal and artistic freedom for him), the movie is still tremendously bland and uninteresting. Even some of the worst music biopics leave you with a slightly more informed image of the artist in question than you had going in. But Michael does not.
The film’s major narrative concern is on Michael getting out from under the thumb of his harsh, abusive father and manager Joe Jackson, played by Colman Domingo. Under this lens, Michael’s biography is chronicled in a very mundane fashion, from the beginnings of the Jackson 5 with his four older brothers and the stardom that came quickly to him as its breakout performer through his early years as a solo artist, endeavouring to cut the chord from Joe while unleashing his own creative impulses the bigger he gets. There are glimpses of concerns with manipulating his physical appearance -notably his nose job, and on his general arrested development and perpetual interest in children’s media and ephemera -suggested to be a by-product of missing out on his childhood.
Though the Joe Jackson relationship is the overarching theme, it is rendered very awkwardly so -especially towards the end where it feels very out of place given the trajectory of Michael’s career. But something needed to be there between the pop song performances and generic biopic scenes of industry authorities rambling on about how great Michael is and hack illustrations of creative inspiration. You know exactly for example how the movie is going to play the impetus of “Thriller” by a brief insert of Michael watching a horror movie, smiling, and then cutting to the production of that iconic video.
Like in many a music biopic Michael’s creativity is very underutilized -we don’t get a sense beyond a trivial note like this of where his song ideas come from or how in any way the subject matter of his music is reckoned against his Peter Pan syndrome. Even where it concerns “Beat It” -apparently inspired by just watching a news report on gang violence- it comes to being fully formed, with his meeting with real gang members who would go on to be in the music video merely a pretense for him to train them in moves he already mostly had down. Also it’s kind of funny how a few of them are depicted as fanboys. The movie would have you believe that every song sprung from Michael like magic, with only cursory glances to his movie and musical and political influences. As a social artist, his outlooks are incredibly one-note, which sure -matches the real artist- but the movie has no interest in probing beneath that.
The one thing that does deserve some real credit here is the performance of Jafaar Jackson who does justify the nepotistic casting in at least the respect of his dancing. As much as moves like the moonwalk, the "Thriller" dance, and the lean from “Smooth Criminal” have become popularized, few can actually imitate well Michael Jackson’s distinct dancing style -but Jafaar is one of those people. And he doesn’t make it look effortless. His vocal impression is mostly good and apart from where he digitally dons Michael’s nose after his first plastic surgery he looks the part pretty well -and that is really all that is required of him, neither Fuqua nor the script demand much from this performance. The only other thing that counts of course is his singing, and the movie is aware that those songs are what lots of audiences will demand from a biopic and nothing else. On these he delivers: ”Beat It”, “Billie Jean”, “Bad” -each gets a showcase. One of the more elaborate bits is the recreation of part of the “Thriller” music video, which is nifty and might have led to an interesting place if the movie chose to at all to dissect Michael’s specific interest in the art of music videos and his creative collaboration with a director like John Landis. But it is almost entirely a recreation to fill in a quota.
There is a little of that coming from the Jackson estate as well, emphasizing the Jackson 5, albeit as a nebulous collective of non-personalities beyond Michael. The depiction of his family is strange, including the very conspicuous absence of his sister Janet, the only other Jackson who is a household name. Joe is the designated enemy, though a fairly weak one whom Fuqua doesn't seem all that interested in -his control over Michael, even psychologically, failing to resonate in both Jackson's and Domingo's performances. His grip simply isn't tangibly there, his power severely waned by the time he gets his Jackson 5 reunion tour in 1985. It represents the movie's haphazard structure and is a sign of its chaotic redesign -which occurred when the movie had to scrap its third act for legal reasons. The attempt to mould a new third act is pitiful, and also results in the latter half of Michael's most prolific decade as an artist being completely wiped from the movie. Motifs set up (like Neverland) are not accounted for and the movie as a result feels palpably rushed and unfinished. The hope is that a concert performance of "Bad" will distract from that.
Beyond the blatantly obvious, Michael's image is whitewashed in other ways. While his first rhinoplasty is depicted, none of his subsequent plastic surgeries are and his vitiligo is mentioned at one point but not the excesses he would go to to cover it (it's notable that while he was already much lighter-skinned by the end of the 80s, Jafaar Jackson's appearance at that point does not reflect that). His childish interests and proclivity for exotic animal pets is treated with whimsy and innocence in the film, nobody attesting to it with an alternative point of view apart from Joe, who is meant to be wrong on every count. Conversely, Michael is perfect, with no side of his character presented with any nuance or complexity to suggest otherwise. A bastion of creativity and talent -sexless, non-controversial, and a victim to his father's controls which are the only source of difficulty in his life.
Michael is cynical brand management at best, cinematic gaslighting at worst -a clear effort at rehabilitating the image of the King of Pop and selling a version of him that is strikingly one-dimensional. As much as you can't remove his work and cultural importance from his controversies, you can't remove those controversies from an overarching image of the man outside of his carefully manufactured persona. Even without these considerations, the movie is formulaic, shallow, clumsily constructed and weirdly cheap-feeling, appealing purely on its relatively small sampling of greatest hits. And while Jafaar is good enough at performing them, his uncle was better -there is nothing new that is brought by this re-enactment. It's Bad, you know it.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jordanbosch.bsky.social
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Comments
Post a Comment