It’s been almost 20 years since Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story parodied the formulaic nature of many biopocs about singers and musicians. The concept is simple. Singer/musician rises from obscurity, becomes a sensation despite some hurdles, faces problems when they’re on top and finally they overcome it to live happily ever after.
Some biopics (Walk the Line, Straight Outta Compton) have played this formula well because it wss how it all happened.
Michael plays this formula so perfectly that it never really offers no insight or depth. Michael Jackson’s siblings (Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and LaToya) are credited as executive producers as well as Paris Michael Jackson. Jermaine’s son, Jaafar, plays his late uncle very well but it’s an impersonation rather than a performance.
What’s so bad is that none of the other Jacksons get much attention and function more as background extras and it’s hard to tell them apart without someone addressing them by name. It’s well reported before the movie was released that Janet isn’t anywhere in the movie. I guess she was either away recording her own music or filming Good Times or Diff’rent Strokes.
The movie moves so fast along Michael’s life that it just seems like a Cliff Notes version beginning in childhood as his father Joseph (Colman Domingo) whips and beats him when he’s too tired to rehearse. Domingo never does much in the role either. It’s more like parody similar to David Alan Grier’s impersonation on In Living Color. Lawrence Hilton Jacobs was very menacing in the role in the 1992 miniseries The Jackson: An American Dream.
Only Michael and LaToya have publicly admitted abuse while others denied it. I think it was because Joseph kept a stranglehold on the royalties and residuals. Like most parents of celebrities, Joseph was very commanding. Yet Nia Long as the matriarch Katherine doesn’t do much when you consider Angela Bassett did a better role in the 1992 miniseries.
The only good performance is by Mike Myers as Walter Yetnikoff, president of CBS Records, who in one scene uses some great extortion to get MTV to play Michael’s music videos.
The movie ends with Michael releasing the Bad album with a title card teasing a sequel. Since the movie movie made over $1 billion, that’s inevitable. Nothing is mentioned about the child sexual abuse allegations but seeing how Michael keeps trying to regain part of his lost childhood, it makes us wonder did he ever really understand. Or even more horrible, was he a victim himself. I wouldn’t put it past Joseph but then again everyone has a line they won’t cross.
Yes director Antoine Fuqua and cinematographer Dion Beebe film the concert scenes well. But why not just watch the original?
Zane Says 