- MICHAEL (2026)
- Starring: Jafar Jackson, Nia Long and Colman Domingo
- Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
- Rated:” PG 13
- Running time: 2 hrs 15 mins
- Lionsgate/Universal
Our score: 2.5 out of 5
I don’t envy Jaafar Jackson.
His dad is Jermaine Jackson, and he looks and sounds uncannily like his uncle Michael. He can replicate the King of Pop’s dance moves, but the movie where he plays Wacko Jacko constantly feels like listening to an indifferent cover band playing his hits.
Screenwriter John Logan, who gave us Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, struggles to tell viewers something they don’t already know about Michael Jackson. That’s almost impossible because so much of his Jackson’s was in front of cameras and microphones. As a result, Michael plays more like a PowerPoint presentation than an actual movie.
It’s not exactly a secret that his early success with the Jackson 5 denied him a childhood and friendships with others his age or that his father Joseph (Colman Domingo) was an abusive stage parent who could have given the Beach Boys’ Murray Wilson a run for his money.
Domingo is grossly overqualified to play such an overbearing heel, but the script never asks him to do anything else. Considering the nuanced performance he gave as civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin, it’s shame to waste his skills on such a monotonously beligerernt role.
After all, you don’t have to work too hard to make a child beater unlikable.
Similarly, other essential figures in Jackson’s like merely appear. Nia Long doesn’t make much of an impression as his mother, other than providing the emotional support Joseph doesn’t. Motown patriarch Berry Gordy, who brought the Jacksons’ music to the world, and producer Quincy Jones who helped shape Jackson’s distinctive groove are reduced to walk ons.
Mike Myers plays CBS Records honcho Walter Yetnikoff the same way he played the record company flack in Bohemian Rhapsody, but he seems to be the one person enjoying himself in this enterprise. Yetnikoff was instrumental in ending MTV’s ridiculous exclusion of black artists, so this brief scene brings some welcome levity and purpose.
Director Antoine Fuquoa has made countless music videos but recreating the magic of Michael Jackon’s output is a lost cause. CBS Records spared no expense on what they shelled out for the clips that promoted “Thriller,” “Beat It” and other hits. His videos were events, so that MTV even announced when “Thriller” would be broadcast.
Director John Sayles who made music videos once lamented that many simply said that point of them was to show that if one became a rock star one could see lots of models in their underwear. Jackson’s videos were far slicker and more sophisticated. The budgets on the Bruce Springsteen videos Sayles shot were bigger than the ones for some of the movies he made.
Fuquoa doesn’t appear to have access to the excess that Micheal and Yetnikoff could summon so easily in the 1980s. The musical numbers here lack the energy and the gravity defying wonder of Jackson’s peak. If you wonder why people cared about this guy who spoke with such a high-pitched voice, go to YouTube and watch the videos for his hits. Seeing him dominate the camera while other performers were simply standing and strumming will be a treat.
Frankly, if you want to learn why his music, his stage act and his videos were so revolutionary, check out Spike Lee’s Bad 25, which expertly dissects the album and shows how he pieced it together through multiple overdubs and a careful ear for detail. Hearing characters in Michael casually discuss tunes that would be classics shortchanges them and the process it took to make them special.
At 2 hours and 15 minutes, Michael manages to feel both rushed and bloated. It’s light on the euphoria of his triumphs and misses the moments that made his human. There’s no discussion of his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness or the charges of child molestation. I can see wanting to celebrate the art not the terrible things he might have done, but much of the content of Michael is downright dull and about as imaginative as a conversation with ChatGPT.
Michael’s fight for control of his music has been copied and pasted from previous biopics (A Complete Unknown, etc) and lacks any real tension. Even if you’ve never heard a note of his music, you already know what’s going to happen.
In the end, no matter how valiantly Jaafar Jackson performs, the film that surrounds him feels more like a tomb than a tribute to his late uncle. There is little to justify leaving home for replicas of videos that will look better on your TV.
On a scale of zero to five, “Michael” receives ★★ ½