'Michael': One of the More Entertaining Wikipedia Movies of the Last Few Years

Antoine Fuqua has directed arguably the most captivating concert film in recent memory

Hang on, what does he mean, Wikipedia movie?

By ‘Wikipedia movie’, I mean a film that’s plot summary closely corresponds to the Wikipedia sections of a notable person, place, or thing.

This essentially sums up the plot of the movie

You might also be thinking, “this just sounds like you described a biopic” but let me tell you something: not all biopics are created equal. And odds are, you’ve probably seen one in the past couple years. Besides recent musical biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody (same producer as this film), Elvis, and A Complete Unknown, there have been countless movies like Flamin’ Hot, Tolkien, and King Richard that have had varying degrees of success.

Let me actually use the last film we added to our list as an example of a biopic that’s NOT just a Wikipedia movie: Moneyball. Real events based on a real person’s life: but focused on a specific period of his life. It does not give us a womb-to-tomb account of the life of Billy Beane, but smartly makes allusions to his past through dialogue and brief flashbacks.

Steve Jobs picks just three key events in the life of Apple’s founder, Dunkirk takes place over the course of a week, and Dog Day Afternoon…well you get the idea.

It’s not necessarily wrong to try to be ambitious and to attempt to cover an entire life: Jesus of Nazareth does this very well, but also Jesus of Nazareth is about six and a half hours long and was made as a four-episode TV miniseries. Mel Gibson smartly focused on the most important moment of Jesus’ earthly life for The Passion of the Christ, a movie meant to be seen in theaters. Many movie suffer from attempting to cover to wide a berth of someone’s life, or in some cases, focusing on the wrong aspects (ahem, Oppenheimer).

Antoine Fuqua’s Michael is certainly a Wikipedia movie, although it’s only half (or maybe a third?) of a full one. It covers Michael Jackson’s life from the early ‘60s as a part of “The Jackson 5” to the debut of his hit song ‘Bad’ in 1987. Two actors play him: Juliano Krue Valdi in his youth and Jackson’s own nephew Jaafar Jackson for the rest of the film.

And let me just say, this movie does not work without Jaafar.

Watching this movie truly is a surreal experience because Jaafar not only looks so much like his uncle but has truly captured his voice, mannerisms, and- most importantly- his moves. This movie would not work with any other actor; it’s likely he has been preparing his whole life for this. Your brain shuts off that you’re watching an actor and it just feels like you’re watching a documentary about Michael Jackson.

The other half of what makes this work is Coleman Domingo as Joe Jackson, the paterfamilias of the Jackson clan. I would not be surprised if Domingo snags an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for this. His domineering, manipulative performance reminded me a lot of Holt McCallany’s recent performance as the head of the Von Erich family in 2023’s The Iron Claw (which is a much better, although definitively darker film).

As to the actual film as a whole, it should be noted that the Jackson family are producers on this: therefore this is definitely the “sanitized” version of the Jackson origin. It doesn’t shy away from the harsh way Joe treated his sons, and deals with Michael’s delving into plastic surgery and his burn wounds during the infamous Pepsi commercial filming, which some say was the beginning of Jackson’s mental unraveling for the rest of his life.

It also should be noted that the entire third act- which was supposed to deal with the allegations of child abuse against Jackson- was reshot and is allegedly being saved for a later film. I’ve never looked into these allegations although I am aware of the documentary Leaving Neverland, which delves into detail on the particular case which was levied against him. All I know is that any child star who was never given a chance at a normal childhood is bound to be pretty messed up and this film definitely shows how someone can go from being a normal kid from Gary, Indiana to someone completely warped by fame on a level no other human has ever experienced.

So do I think you should watch this movie? I think it’s best enjoyed as a concert movie. If you enjoy Jackson’s music (as I do) I think it’s the closest thing you could ever get to a time machine to see him in concert. The movie’s been out for four weeks, and the theater I went to was still packed and everyone had a great time. Antoine Fuqua did such a great job directing this (minus the reshoots, which were done by producer Graham King although they’ve been pretty seamlessly inserted into the film).

But I also think if you’re looking for something more objective, and more grounded in the facts, there are better documentaries, books, and of course, Wikipedia pages out there for you to get the full story.