Michael review: Two hours of cosplay karaoke – and absolutely no suggestion of impropriety
Michael Director: Antoine FuquaCert: 12AGenre: BiopicStarring: Jaafar Jackson, Nia Long, Laura Harrier, Juliano Krue Valdi, Miles Teller, Colman Domingo Running Time: 2 hrs 8 minsBacked by the kind of production budget normally reserved for resurrected dinosaurs running amok in a theme park, this long-gestating biopic of Michael Jackson offers two solid hours of cosplay karaoke. Somewhere between all four minutes of I’ll Be There and all six minutes of Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough, you can conjure the corporate meeting that decreed: “Let the music do the talking.”That may have been for the best.One shudders to think what the original coda, reportedly reckoning with Jordan Chandler’s allegations against the “king of pop”, would have looked like in a biopic that Jackson’s daughter, Paris, has criticised as sugar-coated.READ MOREPractical Magic 2 first look: Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman return for cult classic sequelPatrick Muldoon: Days of Our Lives actor dies aged 57Primavera director Damiano Michieletto: ‘Wexford is in my heart. It’s an important part of my story’Four new films to see this week: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Wizard of the Kremlin, The Blue TrailBetween songs, perfunctory scenes demonstrate the tyrannical behaviour of Jackson’s father and manager, Joseph Jackson (Colman Domingo, working with nothing).The star’s siblings appear as an undifferentiated gaggle. Miles Teller and Mike Myers pop up under wigs as the entertainment lawyer John Branca and CBS Records head Walter Yetnikoff.Various aspects of Jackson’s odd life, including his obsession with Peter Pan, his first nose job and his acquisition of Bubbles the chimpanzee, are sketched in barely-there sequences. All told, there’s only about 20 minutes of dialogue to prevent Michael from being entirely sung through.The omissions are glaring. There’s no Elizabeth Taylor, no Janet Jackson and absolutely no suggestion of impropriety.Jaafar Jackson does a good job channelling his late uncle Michael, and the tunes remain as toe-tapping as ever. But you wonder why the Jackson estate, which was heavily involved in production (the singer’s son Prince is one of the film’s executive producers), didn’t option the wildly successful stage shows MJ: The Musical and Thriller: Live instead.Who exactly is this sanitised, corporatised cash-in for? The trailer’s record-breaking 116 million views in its first 24 hours suggest one answer: everyone. Expect a sequel featuring equally chasm-sized obfuscations.In cinemas from Wednesday, April 22nd
