Direction: Antoine Fuqua
Country: USA
Michael is a bland, tasteless, and stereotypical biopic about American superstar Michael Jackson. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, 2001; The Magnificent Seven, 2016) with obvious commercial ambitions, the film focuses on the first half of Jackson’s life—from his difficult childhood in Gary, Indiana, performing alongside his brothers under the supervision of a stern father, to his Motown breakthrough and eventual rise as a solo artist through record-breaking albums such as Off the Wall and Thriller. It also follows his decisive rupture with his opportunistic father.
Michael is not only unexciting and artificial—both musically and emotionally—but also self-congratulatory, choppy, and overly mellow, leaving its subject’s darker chapters and legal controversies safely behind the curtain. The extended musical sequences, recreating several of Jackson’s iconic performances, quickly become excruciatingly overlong. Despite the committed performance of Michael’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, the film remains a sanitized, dramatically inert portrait that never truly captures the brilliance and contradictions of its subject.
