Michael

A Brazen Act of Revisionism Dressed Up as a Biopic

Music biopics have been revived and proved largely winning for studios, especially when delivering soft, fan-service narratives that function more like concert films than any real character study. Such was the case with the bland but mega successful Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), or the likes of Straight Outta Compton (2015), Elvis (2022), or Bob Marley: One Love (2024). The same hasn't been true for films attempting a deeper character study and taking creative risks in how they present their story, such as the brilliant but underseen Rocketman (2019) or Better Man (2024). With a character as renowned and complicated as Michael Jackson, the material was there to make an intriguing film. Yet under the control of his estate, we get a safe hagiography in Michael (2026).

Michael follows the career of Michael Jackson from his days as the roughly ten-year-old lead singer (Juliano Valdi) of his family group the Jackson 5, under the rigid and sometimes abusive eye of his father Joseph (Colman Domingo), to his later solo career as an adult (Jaafar Jackson) with a burgeoning string of hits. The film goes up until 1988, conveniently omitting the start of the sexual abuse controversies that came to define his legacy and character.

Michael Jackson was undoubtedly one of the biggest stars in the history of music, arguably commanding his own era of world domination between The Beatles and Taylor Swift. With such a ubiquitous musical icon, practically everyone has formed memories of his figure, mystique, and music. Yet the reality of his character has always been more complicated, surrounded by child sexual abuse allegations which, while never legally proven in court (he reached settlements with some accusers and was acquitted at another trial in 2005), he never convincingly explained away either. When asked why Jackson had been sleeping in the same bed as a child unrelated to him, his response was: "Why can't you share your bed? The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone."

In an increasingly dour world, it can prove incredibly tempting to want to focus on the image that brings joy, yet to blind oneself in hagiography also flattens the complexities of the artist and person at hand. It takes an effort to grapple with both images of Jackson in a fan's mind, yet it is a duty to do so as a society. To make a film about Jackson's music only would be like making a film about Harvey Weinstein and focusing solely on his brilliance as a producer.

Yet with the Jackson estate overseeing the entire film from its inception, it was unlikely that this film would contribute to that important conversation. Instead, it presents itself as some of the most blatant commercial propaganda in years.

The film is directed by Antoine Fuqua, who has shown himself to be a capable director of midbudget films such as Training Day (2001) and more mainstream fare like The and The Equalizer (2014) and Magnificent Seven (2016). Yet Fuqua strips out any critical eye and, while shooting with a professional visual style, delivers a rather bland Wikipedia summary of Jackson's musical life, with the slightest semblance of a character arc in Michael seeking independence from his father.

Herein lies one of the film's main issues: it shirks from conflict of any kind, portraying Joseph Jackson as the film's sole villain, while everyone else, from record producers to managers to lawyers (who coincidentally have a material interest in the Jackson estate), is portrayed as a loving companion who never pushed back on anything Michael proposed. It is also rather notable how many omissions litter Michael's life: the elimination of several siblings, including pop megastar Janet Jackson (at her request not to appear); the "We Are the World" phenomenon; and his relationships with other celebrities such as Diana Ross, Brooke Shields, and even Martin Scorsese, who directed his short film for "Bad." Everything is crafted in such a clinical way, with the sole purpose of showing Michael as an asexual saint who was abused by his father and had a natural interest in young children and toys, that it feels rather repulsive in its commercial whitewashing (no pun intended).

Jackson could prove a fascinating character study: child prodigy, abuse survivor, a man navigating an arrested development, succumbing to dark impulses of sexual control over children, all while performing and writing some of the most beloved hits of all time. Yet the film shirks from any complicated questions or answers, to the point that Michael comes across as a flat blank slate who doesn't do drugs, have any romantic partners, or display any moments of anger or error. This seems to apply to every character in the film, who all feel like cardboard cutouts of the people they represent, with the single exception of Joseph, who is given the role of villain but from whom Domingo extracts the first semblance of depth and complexity in the entire film. His Joseph is a man who drills his kids to save them from poverty, and whose abusive and tough stance molds them into the disciplined artists they become. It doesn't make him a good father, but it isn't the simple "black or white" (pun intended) narrative the script had in mind on paper.

As for Jaafar Jackson in the lead role (in another sign of the potential lack of objectivity, he is Michael's nephew, the son of his brother Jermaine), he is given little to dig into in his debut, but does rather well in the imitation and physical concert scenes, so that you at times genuinely believe you are watching Michael moonwalk.

The film is largely plotless, with Fuqua letting entire songs play from beginning to end to pad the runtime, and scenes seemingly stitched together from the positive highlights of Michael's life (his monkey Bubbles! The "Thriller" music video!) without any semblance of an arc. The runtime drags accordingly, as you have little sense of where the film is going and realize it has nothing much to say beyond an unsubtle proposal of Michael Jackson sainthood.

In the end, Michael is a rather shoddy PR job that, while dull and shamelessly selective in how it tells its subject's story, fills its runtime with enough of Jackson's hits to essentially become a greatest-hits listening party. While the film has already crossed $700 million globally at the box office, I hope that while people continue to enjoy his music, they won't let this revisionism prevent them from doing the harder work of looking at the entirety of who Michael Jackson really was.

4.5/10