27 April 2026 – Three out of four of us in the cinema club went to see ‘Michael’ at the Showcase cinema. The synopsis on the cinema website was as follows:
“Michael is the cinematic portrayal of the life and legacy of one of the most influential artists the world has ever known. The film tells the story of Michael Jackson’s life beyond the music, tracing his journey from the discovery of his extraordinary talent as the lead of the Jackson Five, to the visionary artist whose creative ambition fuelled a relentless pursuit to become the biggest entertainer in the world.”
What the synopsis doesn’t say is anything about accusations around his contact with children, nor any of the strange behaviour which Michael Jackson portrayed in his life. It did include Michael’s account of a bullying father, the extent of which was disputed by other family members, and it did include Michael’s explanation of Vitiligo being the source of his increasingly uneven pale skin, which was not verified by anyone else.
That being said, Jaafar Jackson (Michael’s nephew) gave an excellent performance, particularly with the dance scenes and his lip syncing to the songs was handled very well. And the film did do a good job of portraying Michael’s amazing musical talent and genius choreography, with the very close friendship with his mother, played by Nia Long, alongside Colman Domingo as the reportedly bullying father.
The film was directed by Antoine Fuqua, famous for directing ‘Training Day’, and he has also directed a number of music videos for some top performing artists. The screenplay was written by John Logan, who also wrote the screenplays for ‘Gladiator’ and ‘The Aviator’.
Mark Kermode’s review, which can be found here, on YouTube, contained some very strong views. Here are some of the quotes…..
“The Messiah….Second Coming”
“Could have been best friends with ET….”
“Solves the whole problem of gang violence for everyone with song and dance….”
“A whole other film missing….not happening….”
“Leaves out ALL of the dark stuff….”
“Comedically, horrifically, hagiographic….”
“Felt profoundly uncomfortable watching it….”
“Where’s the rest of it?….”
“Messianic stuff is nuts….”
“Smiling Pop Jesus stuff….”
It is safe to say that whilst everything Mark Kermode says is correct, his strength of feeling about it was considerably more than that of the three of us, although we did come away acknowledging the considerable talent of Michael Jackson, and the excellent performance of Jaafar Jackson, but were of the opinion that the story had been heavily sanitised, and felt it was a puzzle that Janet Jackson (reportedly Michael’s favourite sibling) was not even portrayed in the film at all.
I gave it a score of 6 whilst ‘IMDB’ gave it 7.7, and the ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ score by the critics was 3.9 (39%), but the RT audience score (not normally reported by me) was 9.7 (97%).
Fraser