The King of Pop Gets a Glossy Hollywood Treatment
Michael Jackson's life was one of the most fascinating, celebrated, and contested stories in modern entertainment history. So when director Antoine Fuqua announced a full-scale biopic simply titled Michael, expectations were sky-high — and the results, according to critics, are a polished but frustratingly shallow portrait of an icon.
The film stars Jaafar Jackson — Michael's actual nephew — in the lead role, and on that front, the casting delivers. Jaafar's physicality, his recreation of those signature moves, and his vocal presence are genuinely impressive. It's the kind of committed performance that earns its own praise separate from the film around it.
Entertainment Over Examination
The problem, as CBC's review makes clear, is that Michael is essentially a greatest hits package dressed up as a biopic. Audiences get the moonwalk. They get the sequined glove. They get enough toe-tapping musical sequences to fill a stadium setlist. What they don't get is any serious attempt to understand what drove the man, what haunted him, or what made him one of the most complex figures in pop history.
The film's reluctance to engage with the more troubling chapters of Jackson's life — the child sexual abuse allegations that dogged him for decades and remain deeply disputed — is particularly conspicuous. In 2026, with Leaving Neverland still fresh in public memory and ongoing conversations about separating art from artist, Michael simply ducks the question. It's a choice that will satisfy Jackson devotees and frustrate everyone else.
A Safe Bet for Fans, A Disappointment for Everyone Else
Fuqua is a skilled director — his work on Training Day and Southpaw showed he can handle morally complex characters when given the material. Here, he seems hemmed in by the Jackson estate's involvement in the production, which reportedly shaped the final cut. The result feels like an authorized story rather than a true cinematic investigation.
For Canadian audiences who grew up with Jackson's music woven into school dances, road trips, and summer barbecues, there's still genuine pleasure in watching those iconic performances recreated with care. The concert sequences are electric. Jaafar clearly idolizes his uncle and it shows in every frame.
But cinema at its best does more than recreate. It illuminates. And Michael, for all its production value, leaves its subject exactly as mysterious as he was before the lights went down.
Worth Seeing? Depends What You're After
If you want two hours of spectacular Jackson choreography on a big screen, Michael will not disappoint. If you want a film that actually wrestles with one of entertainment's most complicated legacies, you'll leave hungry.
The biopic lands as a monument to the music and a monument to avoiding the hard questions — which, in its own way, might be the most Michael Jackson thing about it.
Source: CBC Top Stories — Original review at CBC.ca
