GREATEST MUSICAL SHOWMAN

KING OF POP GIVEN A GENTLE SOUL IN MUSIC VIDEO MOVIE HONOUR

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Director Antoine Fuqua tries his best to stay away from the music video biopic but with the greatest showman as the subject matter, and the greatest musical hits in show business being exhibited, some things are best left to run their own course.

Michael Jackson was perhaps the greatest entertainer of an era when Black musicians were no longer confined to Motown.

The music biopic, Michael (2026), starts at the early beginning of the Jackson 5 when Joseph Jackson, the family patriarch, shaped his five sons into a singing sensation. Coleman Domingo transforms into Joseph Jackson, a stern authoritarian who has to be center stage.

Coleman creates Joseph as being a bit myopic and not being able to see the harm he was causing to his family by his need for complete control.

The Jacksons practice in the living room over and over again until Joseph decides the time is right to take the music troupe onto the public stage. The Jackson 5 get immediate fan recognition and soon get noticed by Motown talent scout, Suzanne de Passe, played by Laura Harrier.

Michael is played by Juliane Valdi during the early years. This era involves act one and act two of the film during which Fuqua establishes the family dynamic in which Joseph manages difficult decision by imposing fear, such as strapping Michael with a belt for talking back or questioning his management of the musical group.

Jaafer Jackson plays Michael as an adult who has learned to fear his father but nonetheless continues on until being able to pick and choose his own advisors from outside the Jackson family.

Fuqua follows the musical biopic genre in which the showman and the entertainment phenomenon are depicted in a way that discloses the artist’s overall vision. Fuqua stays away from the more controversial personal melodrama and focuses more on the fantasy behind the business of selling persona and music in a multi million dollar entertainment industry.

Jaafer creates the Jackson character as a kind-hearted, slightly feminine persona, even as an adult, who enjoys time spent with his mother, and appreciates the importance of family and supporting his brothers, even after pursuing a solo career to break the control of his father.

Several Jackson hits are performed for the film in their entirety, while the backdrop of the narrative is the prolific nature of the entire Jackson family in being able to produce one musical hit after another.

The camera adds even more tension to the narrative, by oscillating from long shots on stage to close ups in the crowd, and then back to normal again back home at the Neverland Ranch.

Fuqua shows a lot of creativity in presenting evidence of the mania around Michael Jackson. And that Jackson himself was enthralled from an early age with the whole idea of being the greatest entertainer in the world.

Neverland is layered on top of the biographical material based on Michael’s infatuation with Peter Pan and the fantasy world such an iconic story can generate for a young creative.

Michael’ second love is shown to be toward the animals he adopts for the Neverland Ranch, such as a Lamma, a Giraffe, a very large snake and then a chimpanzee.

Fuqua ends the timeline of the narrative before the personal controversies occur, unless he stopped suddenly because he ran out of title cards showing the years pass by, with a bit of a promise that all will be revealed in an undisclosed sequel.

The creative camera work is almost as impressive as Jackson’s dance moves as the production of the more famous of the famous music videos is also featured as the biopic film becomes a music video within a music video concert.

The millions of Michael Jackson fans worldwide ought to be happy with the film, while the haters will likely, although predictably, hate the film for what the film does not disclose, simply because the events have not yet occurred in real time.

Even the alleged abuse of Joseph is sanitized a bit, although apparently too obvious to entirely ignore, with Fuqua using the need for Michael to get away from the abuse as a narrative device.

Fuqua shows a build-out of his film artistry from experience as a filmmaker of such movie wonders as Training Day (2001).