Michael (2026)

As Antoine Fuqua's stultifying, bland and staggeringly ill-judged biopic of former pop icon Michael Jackson dragged into its second hour, I was suddenly reminded of the grindcore band Paedo Pan. Despite the fact I'm a fan of grindcore (Pig Destroyer and Carcass are personal favourites), Paedo Pan exists solely to shock, their name a vile play on the much-loved children's tale of Peter Pan. Much loved, as it turns out, by Michael Jackson, not only as a child but also as an adult. Perhaps now you can see why I was reminded of this dreadful band, though if you can't, I'm not going to bother explaining it, because Fuqua's film sure as hell doesn't. Michael actively sprints in the opposite direction to the numerous claims made against its subject, to the point that the last half an hour of the film would be laugh-out-loud funny if it weren't such a disgraceful whitewash. Credit where credit is due: Jaafar Jackson is terrific as his uncle, weaving an uncanny ability to portray the icon through performance and dance. As is Juliano Valdi, who plays the young ten-year-old Michael, and the pair of them are the best thing about the film by some distance. Colman Domingo is also his usual solid self as Michael's father Joseph, a man who clearly had a major influence on Michael's eccentricities in the way he was brought up and dominated by his father; yet the film seems to attempt to lay the blame for whatever isn't being mentioned here on Joseph, while categorically not going near the subject for its entire running time. Michael is well put together, well-made, and technically efficient. Indeed, the concert scenes at the end from both the Jackson Five's farewell tour and Jackson himself performing live at Wembley in 1988 will undoubtedly have fans singing along and bopping in the aisles. But if they have anything about them, by the time these final scenes come around, their jaws really should be on the floor for all the wrong reasons. The film finishes with the words 'The story continues.' You're damn right it does. It's as if the film is nodding towards a part two that it knows will never come. If it did, a double bill of Michael and its follow-up would be akin to watching Paw Patrol: The Movie (2021) followed by A Serbian Film (2010). It only takes a brief look at the credits to ascertain the hagiographic approach the film takes- numerous members of the Jackson family are involved, with not a single mention or reference to the glaring elephant in the room for the duration. It's truly staggering. There's no doubting Jackson's incredible talent or the effect he had on the world stage, but if you go and see Michael and come out loving it without having serious reservations, you're either five years old or you're an idiot. This is about as uncomfortable a viewing experience as you could get for a mainstream biopic. It begins in the late sixties and ends in 1988, a full five years before police turned up at Jackson's house for the first time after allegations of child abuse had finally surfaced. Indeed, according to Variety, that scene with the cops was initially supposed to open this film, but for legal reasons, they scrapped it. Ultimately, this will be a huge hit and sadly, make a shit ton of money. But even without everything that's not being said, this is a bland biopic that's not remotely fleshed out and is all surface, which somehow makes the whole thing worse. It's a bit like seeing a biopic of Osama Bin Laden that suddenly ends in 1983 and makes no mention of anything that came after. 3.8/10