“Michael” is a musical, artistic and beautiful gem of a biopic, but it still has its flaws.
I was very fond of “Michael” but I can’t lie. I was also a big Michael Jackson fan before watching this movie. But I didn’t let my love of the artist stop me from giving this movie a genuine review, including the good, the bad, and everything in between. (Even though this movie is based on true events, I still want to say there will be some spoilers.)
“Michael” follows the first part of Michael Jackson’s life starting in 1968 with the Jackson 5 getting their start in the music industry, with it also exploring the hard and abusive upbringing of Michael Jackson, with the movie ending with the significant 1988 “Bad” concert.
The Good: The acting was by far the best part of this movie, with the two standout performances being Jaafar Jackson as his uncle Michael Jackson and Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson.
Jaafar Jackson does an incredible job as his uncle Michael Jackson. He brings such an amazing/colorful performance as Michael, with it being so good that it felt like I was watching the actual Michael Jackson sing and dance on screen. This was the main thing I was worried about – this movie getting wrong – but they sure proved me wrong.
The second all-star performance I saw in this movie was Colman Domingo’s betrayal of Joe Jackson. He captured the evil and egotistical mind of Joe Jackson with him being a menacing, manipulative and just sad little man that Joe Jackson really was, which I was very glad to see.
I also enjoyed the way the movie looked and felt. The movie had a golden/sunny feeling to it with every scene day or night feeling bright and alive, especially any of the concert scenes with the famous “Bad” concert looking very bright and alive even though most of the concert was engulfed in darkness.
The choreography and singing was genuinely spectacular. Jaafar Jackson put his blood, sweat and tears into this role when it came to the dancing and singing because at some points I couldn’t believe that wasn’t Michael Jackson on screen dancing and singing to me.
The Middle: I feel that the emotional depth to this movie was sadly quite shallow with the only real emotional feeling I got from this movie was when Michael stood up to his father at the very end, but everything else either was glossed over too quickly or just not very expanded upon as much as I would have liked. For example, the Pepsi incident felt way too rushed, even though it did take up a pretty big part of the movie.
The pacing, even though mostly good, felt super fast and like the movie was missing a lot of the early life of Michael Jackson, with it skimming through the early success of the Jackson 5. It maybe showed two early concerts and skipped straight to the Jackson 5 signing their first record deal and singing “ABC” and gaining major fame.
The Bad (I’m Bad, I’m Bad): Now the biggest problem I had with this movie is the oversimplification of Michael Jackson’s life. When I say oversimplification, I really only mean that with two things, one being Janet Jackson not being as big of a part as she was in Michael’s life, but it’s not the movie’s fault that Janet wanted nothing to do with the movie.
The second oversimplification I didn’t care much for was the simplification of the abuse that the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson went through, with the movie only really showing the bare minimum that they went through. There were two scenes of Michael being beaten and only a handful of Joe being the scummy abusive dad that he was, but besides that, there was nothing else the movie did BAD.
One thing I did see people complaining about was the movie not tackling the criminal charges brought against Michael Jackson in 1993 for sexual abuse, but those charges were not brought against Michael until 1993, and the movie ends in 1988 so I don’t see why anybody would be mad at them leaving it out when there’s still over 20 years left of the man’s career. So me, personally, I don’t see them leaving it out as a con due to it not being its time yet.
“Michael” is as good as biopics get, and with the major box office success it achieved, with it making $218 million opening weekend, I’m not surprised they’ve already put a sequel in development as of April 28, 2026.
I give “Michael” ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2 or an 8.6/10, a must-see in theaters.