Save for 2024’s Bob Dylan film “A Complete Unknown,” most recent biopics have fallen into the trap of what I call “Checklist Biographies” – in which the filmmakers simply check off career milestones from a list. In the case of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the Freddie Mercury career milestones were presented in the wrong order! In the case of “Whitney Houston: I Want to Dance with Somebody,” at least some attention was given to her homosexual relationship. It was a Checklist Biography, but at least it had an angle. “Michael,” Antoine Fuqua’s new biopic of Michael Jackson, there isn’t even a unique angle. This is simply a checklist of Jackson’s career through the launching of the “Bad” album in 1987. To give it any more credit would be assigning credit where none is due.
Jaafar Jackson, son of older brother Jermaine, does an admirable job of capturing Michael’s softspoken demeanor, his eclectic performance style, and (especially) his dancing skill. Too bad his talent couldn’t have been utilized in a better film. Colman Domingo plays Michael’s overbearing father, Joseph. He’s good, as always, but he isn’t given much to do other than be mean and overbearing. Nia Long is Michael’s sweet but subservient mother, Katherine, and Miles Teller plays Michael’s entertainment attorney John Branca.
Working from an original screenplay by John Logan, Fuqua takes us from the Jackson family’s humble beginnings in Gary, Indiana, through their many years of fortune and fame. In Gary, we see a young Michael look out the window, longing to play with the neighborhood kids, before his stern father calls Michael and his brothers together for another practice session. After a performance in Chicago, a representative of Motown Records approaches Joseph about signing the boys to a recording contract.
When the Jackson 5 take off as the hottest recording act of 1970, Michael spends his spare time watching cartoons and reading children’s books – as we are led to believe Michael is attempting to live out the childhood he never had. In a particularly egregious “hit us over the head with a hammer” scene, Joseph beats Michael following a performance in which he made some mistakes, followed immediately by a scene of Michael focusing on the page in “Peter Pan” in which Peter kills the evil Captain Hook. See, Captain Hook represents Michael’s father, and Peter Pan represents… Oh, never mind. You get it. This is pedestrian filmmaking at best.
We are also “treated” to early scenes depicting young Michael’s obsession with wildlife. As his fame grows, he brings a veritable zoo to the Jackson family’s admittedly large property in Los Angeles. Michael’s obsessions seem to be explained away as a means of living out the childhood he, perhaps inadvertently, feels was robbed from him. That’s interesting. But it isn’t new. Anyone who remembers Jackson’s life already knew this.
In one scene, he tells his mother he likes his animals because the local kids don’t treat him like a “normal” person. Well, of course they don’t! By this point in his life, he’s one of the most famous people on the face of the earth. He’ll never have that childhood back again. It’s the same issue Elvis Presley faced. I guess we could summarize by saying some people are just “too famous.” I’m sorry this was Michael’s fate. But we already knew this.
As previously mentioned, “Michael” takes us up through 1987, which means this film never gets into the charges of child molestation and exploitation brought against him during the 1990s. I have no problem with that. I prefer this film be a celebration of Michael’s life, rather than exploiting the negative. Also, we critics were always taught to review the film that was made, not the film we might have wanted to see. But my biggest issue is that “Michael” doesn’t teach us anything we didn’t already know – with the possible exception of the fact that Walter Yetnikoff, president of CBS Records, threatened to pull his entire library (including Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, and Bob Dylan) from MTV if they didn’t start playing Michael Jackson’s videos. Sure, that’s interesting; but it’s just one little tidbit in an otherwise boring film. Again, the singing and dancing are great. But I could watch Jackson’s videos on YouTube and come away with the same respect for his talent.
For the most part, the timeline of “Michael” is correct, save for one minor instance and one major occurrence. When the Jackson 5 performs an early set in 1968, they sing “Never Can Say Goodbye,” a song they didn’t even release until 1971. Okay, I can forgive that. But the unforgivable display of incorrect information occurs when Michael wrestles with his “first” solo album, “Off the Wall.” By this time, he’s left Motown for Epic Records, and he’s afraid of the wrath of his father for releasing a solo album separate from the Jackson 5. The truth is that Jackson had already released four solo albums for Motown during the 1970s. There was nothing radical about his working on a solo album. What was radical is that he did so outside of his father’s guidance. That was the issue, but Logan’s screenplay would lead us to believe “Off the Wall” was his very first solo effort. It was not, and information this wrong does not belong in any biopic – even a good one.
I am also somewhat perplexed at the “missing” information. We see Michael’s fascination with horror films as he watches an old Vincent Price flick. And we all know Vincent Price reads the monologue at the end of the song “Thriller.” Did Michael personally invite Price to handle this reading? Probably. But that’s never addressed. Also, no mention is made of the oddest song on the “Thriller” album, “The Girl is Mine.” Did Paul McCartney ask to record a duet with Michael Jackson? Did Michael ask Paul? Was their pairing the brainchild of a record producer or executive? I guess we’ll never know, as this information is omitted. If anything, “Michael” features too much Michael. Too much singing and dancing at the expense of actually teaching us something we don’t already know.
As one who admired Jackson’s enormous talent, it’s tempting to call “Michael” a “hit and a miss.” But “Michael” isn’t even that good. Its only redeeming feature is the singing and dancing. Again, Jaafar Jackson does a great job embodying his late uncle. But that’s not nearly enough to recommend a film. Timothee Chalamet perfectly embodied Bob Dylan, but “A Complete Unknown” was a great film which took us inside the inner working’s of Dylan’s mind. Here, all we learn is that Michael was robbed of a childhood. I’m sorry that’s the case – and I feel sorry for Michael — but once again, we already knew this.
