Hagiographic Michael Jackson biopic is bad, it’s bad, you know it (really, really bad)

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Michael

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Written by John Logan

Starring Jaafar Jackson, Colman Domingo and Miles Teller

Classification PG; 127 minutes

Opens in theatres April 24

Halfway into Michael, the new, much-delayed, much-agonized over biopic of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson and his lawyer have a discussion about the marketing campaign for the star’s new album, 1982’s Thriller.

Jackson, somewhat emancipated from the ice-cold control of his ruthlessly domineering father, Joe, is eager to evolve as an artist away from his family, to find his own singular voice. To that end, Jackson (played by Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s real-life nephew via brother Jermaine) instructs his faithful attorney John Branca (Miles Teller) to bypass the publicity machine – no press, no interviews. Just let the record speak for itself.

As we all know today, the tactic worked. But the music-over-the-man approach is also employed by the filmmakers behind Michael, to a far less impactful degree. In the hands of two Hollywood veterans who should really know better by this point in their careers – director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan – what could have been a layered, insightful portrait of the most complicated, significant figure in pop-culture history has been reduced to a supersized music video slash concert documentary, the man in its mirror more of a faded reflection than anything else.

We don’t learn anything new about Jackson because there is, the filmmakers unintentionally argue, nothing that you need to know about him. Respect the music, respect the man. And then kindly move along.

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Then again, Fuqua and Logan’s hands were tied. If they wanted to secure the soundtrack rights to Jackson’s catalogue, which is essential to attracting any audience interested in the musician, then they would need the cooperation of the singer’s estate. And to get that – and judging by the number of Jackson family members credited here as executive producers, they seemed to gain approval from every living member of the clan sans Janet – then they needed to present the most sanitized, toothless and thus tension-free chronicle possible. Does that sound like the kind of movie worth celebrating, or enduring? It depends on which side of Jackson’s legacy you sit.

For those who believe that Jackson’s brilliant artistry cannot be separated from the allegations of child molestation that followed him for the latter half of his career, then you need to keep on moving. Maybe go see something a little more challenging like The Drama or even The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But for anyone who believes that Jackson was an innocent genius untouched by any genuine scandal, a beautiful mind trapped inside a tortured body, then this is the cinematic hagiography you have been waiting for.

Structured as the kind of straight-ahead musician biopic that cannot help but seem irrepressibly dopey in the wake of the brilliant 2007 farce Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Fuqua’s film is aggressively cliched. There is Michael as a young boy rehearsing with his brothers in the American armpit of Gary, Ind., singled out for corporal punishment by patriarch-slash-manager Joe (Colman Domingo). Then there’s Michael as an older, but still extremely boyish, musician impressing producers such as Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson) and record executives such as Motown’s Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate) everywhere he goes. Then there’s Michael coming into his own, standing up to the father who has cast such a dark shadow over his arrested-development life.

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But even that quick and dirty description above of the film’s dramatic arc feels more considered and generous than the one given life on the screen. Mostly, the movie is a very expensive excuse for Fuqua (best known for his action movies with Denzel Washington) to recreate one classic music video or legendary concert performance after another.

A slick stylist with a sometimes unhealthy affection for discombobulated editing, Fuqua captures the electric energy of a Jackson show well enough that you wish he might’ve been around when the musician was touring stadiums in the ’80s.

And there is some easy fun to be had in watching Fuqua tweak the directorial work of John Landis (here shown only on the margins of the Thriller music-video shoot, sucking back a can of Tab soda) and Bob Giraldi (who shot the infamous Pepsi commercial in which Jackson’s hair accidentally caught fire). Compared to the dreadful contemporary movie-musical choreography employed by the likes of Wicked or Emilia Perez, which frequently cut images of their dancers off at the knees, Fuqua’s film can feel like a full-frame delight.

But there is just not enough of a movie to hang those showstopping numbers on. Just as all the note-perfect moves and movie-star magic of a sensational Jaafar Jackson – taking the biggest of swings here in his very first on-screen performance – are not enough to ensure his uncle’s story is given the cinematic life that it deserves. Domingo, as the terrifying Joe, and Nia Long, as his long-suffering wife Katherine, push their characters to the brink. But even for such fiercely talented performers, they find themselves constrained by Logan’s script, which constantly finds a way to extinguish the threat of any real drama.

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As for Teller’s portrayal of Jackson’s ultra-loyal attorney, who surely only has his client’s best wishes at heart, well, I’m sure that the actor earned a few nice nods from the real-life Branca, who is one of the film’s producers. Someone on the team, though, should get a raise for convincing Mike Myers to pop by and deliver a fantastically over-the-top, unrecognizable performance as Walter Yetnikoff, the head of CBS Records.

Intriguingly, there was once a version of Michael whose structure was bookended by the controversy that ended up defining Jackson’s legacy, with the movie opening with the 1993 raid on the singer’s Neverland Ranch and then rewinding to trace his life up until that point. Ultimately, the film’s entire structure had to be rebuilt because of legal clauses involving the depiction of one of Jackson’s accusers, with reshoots reportedly costing upward of US$15-million, and resulting in the film ending during the Bad tour of ‘88.

Interviews with Fuqua suggest that his original vision was still designed to fervently dispute any wrongdoing by Jackson – “I shot him being stripped naked, treated like an animal, a monster,” the director recently told The New Yorker – but at least that now-lost iteration of the film had a viewpoint of sorts, an argument, some genuine stakes.

This new version of Michael, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite of the man himself. It is a movie with no soul, no beauty and no voice.