After years of studies wanting to create the Michael Jackson Biopic, the movie was finally released on the 24th in theaters, and people were able to get an early screening in selected theaters across the world. Premiere Night for the movie was at Gary Indiana, where Michael Jackson had grown up in his youth and would stay there until he eventually moved to LA after The Jackson Five had blown up. This review will have sort of spoilers for the movie but everything shown in the movie happens in real life so you have been warned for spoilers.
The beginning of the movie starts with Michael Jackson (played by Jafaar Jackson) getting ready for one of his tours for the new song BAD, which had been released at the peak of his career. The movie then cuts to the 1960’s where Michael (played by Juliano Krue Valdi who plays younger MJ) is a child practicing with his brothers to go to different shows for The Jackson 5. We see all of the brothers in their youth. We mostly in Michael’s Youth, we see his struggles that he had grown up with like hit father beating him, and showing us multiple practices that Michael did not want to do, and different shows from different parts of Indiana. During this era we get to see one of the music searchers from Motown and the father of the Jackson 5 Joseph (played by Colman Domingo) gets in touch with them and the Jackson 5 is able to start making music professionally. We then get a massive time jump from Michael being a kid to now an Adult who is wanting to start his own career and start doing what he wants to do but he is scared of his father. With the time schedule that Michael has, when he has his free time he begins to start working on his first ever solo album, Off The Wall. In the movie we get to hear the different songs being made during that time and we get to hear just the pure vocals of Michael singing Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough. We get to see a montage of how popular his Album had got and we get to see that Michael is happy about everything. We then get to see Joseph planning different things behind Michael’s back to continue The Jackson’s by still making Michael practice with his brothers every single day and is wanting to plan a international Tour. Around this time, we also to get to see some off the behind the scenes views in Michael’s life from when he had gotten his pet monkey Bubbles, and him interactions with different fans around the world.
After the success of Off The Wall, We see Michael meet a guy at a music meeting named John (played by Miles Teller) who secretly knows about what Michael wants to do for his future, and Michael hires him to help him fire his father from Motown so that he does not have to get bossed around by him. Around the same time, Michael gets his first surgery on his Nose after contemplating doing it because he does not like it and he is wanting to start changing to show a better image of himself. After Michael is able to recover from the surgery, his father forces Michael to do the international tour, The Victory Tour, to help him get more fans and to use Michael’s singles for the actual tour. Around this time, we get to see the creation of the Thriller album where we get to see Michael work on music like Beat it, and Billie Jean, and we get to see some of the Thriller music video, which is Michael’s best short film. Joseph only wants to use Michael so that he can continue to gain money by using Michael as his key to help The Jackson’s stay in the business. Michael’s life changing accident is shown, as we get to see the Pepsi incident where Michael had accidentally gotten his hair on fire which had affected Michael in many Physical and Mental ways. But after he heals from the injury, he continues the tour and before the brothers go international, Michael live on stage and announces that their last tour in the States is the last for The Jackson’s. Joseph is furious after this announcement and attempts to confronts Michael about what he had said, to which Michael had simply ignored him because he was tired of being the puppet to his fathers success. After this happens, we finally get back to the beginning of the movie at the BAD Tour, where we get to see a full song of Bad as we see Michael doing what he usually does on stage. The movie ends with “His story will continue” as after seeing the movie, there is most likely going to be the second part.
In my opinion, this movie was really good. It was my first ever Biopic movie I have seen and it has left a high expectation for me when I plan on watching other Biopics. I think that Jaafar had played his uncle really well, as his voice sounded almost exactly like him and his dances and how he acts, generally looks like Michael had been brought back. My only 2 downsides about this movie is Michael’s Childhood being In my opinion, honestly kind of boring. I know that it was supposed to show how Michael had grown up and why he acted like how he had, but it just felt really slow and didn’t show that much interest for me. My other downside was how they had portrayed the Pepsi Incident. From seeing the actual incident from videos, i do not think it is accurate.
But besides this whole movie, I love Michael Jackson and I think this 1st movie is really good, and i am excited to see how they play out the 2nd half of his life.
9.5/10
