2 hours ago
5
Antoine Fuqua’s demi-biopic of Michael Jackson gives you the chimp, the llama, the giraffe … but not the elephant in the living room. It’s like a 127-minute trailer montage assembling every music-movie cliche you can think of: the producers’ astonishment in the recording studio, the tour bus, the billboard chart ascent, the meeting with the uncool corporate execs in their offices.
The film skates through Jackson’s life from the early days of the Jackson Five, terrorised by belt-wielding dad Joe, to his emergence as a stunningly original, globally adored solo act, culminating in the colossal Wembley Stadium concert in 1988, at which stage he was 30-years-old. And there we leave it, with the baffling surtitle flashed up on screen before the end credits roll: “The story continues”. It certainly does. Does this mean a second, darker movie is in the works? Maybe. Producer Graham King and the Jackson family estate are reportedly considering a “Michael 2”; if this happens, they will have to find a very different film-making style, something other than this bland, slick, corporate hagiography. And there is certainly no clear commitment to anything. All concerned might well think it’s best to exit here, and avoid the controversy, like the stage show MJ: The Musical.
Michael’s 29-year-old nephew Jaafar Jackson, son of Jermaine Jackson, plays Michael himself, taking over from Juliano Valdi as the 10-year-old version in the film’s opening act; Jaafar fabricates Michael’s onstage dancing and singing style with terrific, intuitive flair and the film naturally zaps you with the superb tracks themselves.
But what about the offstage, off-camera Michael, the Michael famously reluctant to give interviews? This emerges with endless smiley blandness, the speaking voice a childlike pass-agg birdsong, beaming over his menagerie, pouting over a childhood picture book of Peter Pan, frowning with sad-face stoicism over his dad’s latest capricious cruelty. This may well have been exactly what Michael Jackson was really like, but the film is unable to question and scrutinise his diffident, delicate mannerisms, or bring them to life and find within them the passion and defiance of his early self – or the possible source of a later, darker side.
Joe is played by Colman Domingo, the one actor who is allowed to let rip – this character’s villainy being safely agreed upon – and Domingo is fierce and watchable in the pantomime role of the brothers’ patriarch and tormentor, brutally exploiting his talented boys, gouging them for every cent. Nia Long has the uninterestingly conceived role of Michael’s sorrowing mother, Katherine, while Jamal R Henderson is Jermaine, Tre Horton is Marlon, Rhyan Hill is Tito, Joseph David-Jones is Jackie and Jessica Sula is La Toya, all in virtually mute supporting roles. Kendrick Sampson has little to work with as Quincy Jones, especially compared with the baffling amount of emphasis on Michael’s bodyguard Bill Bray (KeiLyn Durrel Jones) with whom Michael is always exchanging knowing looks. Michael’s lawyer John Branca is a credited producer on this film, which might explain how very prominent he is here, as played by Miles Teller. With as much impish fun as John Logan’s straight-faced script allows, Mike Myers has a cameo as CBS president Walter Yetnikoff, bullying MTV into giving Michael airplay.
But 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 which may or may not happen in a couple of years, the part of Jackson’s life in which his behaviour was increasingly perplexing, dangling a baby over a hotel balcony – as well as facing sexual abuse allegations.
Jaafar Jackson makes an honest effort at showing Michael, and there are some amusing moments, such as the making of the Thriller video, with Michael insouciantly (and quite possibly accurately) telling director John Landis how to do his job. But that brief film has more energy and authenticity than this.
