Film: This Is It | reviews, news & interviews
Film: This Is It
Film: This Is It
The movie of the show that never was: Michael Jackson's affecting swansong
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
There are several reasons why you might be planning to avoid the Michael Jackson movie, This Is It. The hype about advance ticket sales has been deafening, enhancing the suspicion that the project was cooked up by Jackson’s concert promoters as a catchpenny exercise to recoup their £25m investment in the aborted series of shows at the O2. The star’s death the day after a dress rehearsal is hardly reassuring either. What sort of shape was he in while the film – apparently culled from 100 hours of rehearsals in LA earlier this year - was being shot? You can almost hear the doctored vocal performances and see the body-double dancers at work. This Was Not It, you might well be thinking.
Banish all such thoughts, except the one about the hype. When I saw the film earlier today in the West End, the cinema was virtually empty. But what the hardy band of 20 or so paying customers saw was a revelation. This Is It might not be the legacy movie Jackson would have wished for, but it contains enough to justify that rather tired sobriquet, King of Pop, which he clung to during his final decade of scandal and musical inactivity.
The opening sequence - during which various dancers gush to camera about what a life-changing experience working for Jackson has been for them – is predictably toe-curling. What follows, thankfully, is a gripping series of performances intercut with exchanges between Jackson and his co-workers that demonstrate his intense involvement in every detail of the show. From the playing of the bass lines and guitar solos – “This is your chance to shine,” he exhorts his lady lead guitarist in a break in the run-through of "Black or White" – to the choice of images projected onto the giant screen at the back of the stage, Jackson is the man with the plan. Never mind that the show’s director Kenny Ortega, who also put together the movie, misses no opportunity to get himself into shot; the overriding impression is that Jackson, skinny and frail as he looks, is about to make a comeback to rival that of Elvis in Las Vegas in 1969.
His voice seems to be in remarkably good shape. Technology can do a lot these days to repair faulty pitching but there is clearly none of that in the touching a cappella duet with Judith Hill at the end of "I Just Can’t Stop Loving You", which shows that Jackson has forgotten none of his old gospel tricks. His dancing too is well up to scratch. Fronting a troupe of lithe young things half his age, Jackson’s uniquely twitchy style looks as sharp as it ever did, and it comes across particularly well under the close scrutiny of the camera.
His cinematic preoccupation is one of the main reasons why this movie is a must-see. The specially prepared film sequences that accompany most of the 12 songs are, I presume, exactly what the audience would have seen had the concerts taken place, and they are extraordinary. Highlights include the cunning re-make of an old Bogart gangster flick - in which Jackson himself now appears - that accompanies "Smooth Criminal", and a hilariously OTT farrago of freaks and monster men devised for "Thriller". Even "Earth Song"’s simplistic eco-messages, contained in lavish footage of the wonders of the natural world and the destruction that awaits them, have an undeniable impact.
Interestingly, This Is It studiously avoids playing its potentially most dramatic card, the death of Jackson himself. There are no shots of the weepy aftermath of the news that the show will not be going on. Instead the film ends quietly, with a frozen image of Jackson standing arms outstretched after a mesmerising performance of "The Man In The Mirror". I hadn’t expected to leave the cinema with a lump in my throat, but to my considerable surprise, I did.
This Is It is on general release.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more
Jerry’s Girls, Menier Chocolate Factory review - just a parade that passes by
Three talented performers in a revue that doesn’t add up to much
Classical CDs: Cowhorns, gloves and marching drums
Contemporary sounds from Norway, plus rediscovered American and a brass dectet
Punt and Dennis, The Marlowe, Canterbury review - satire and sketches
Double act back on the road after a decade
Album: Jihye Lee Orchestra - Infinite Connections
A serious and important third album dominated by Korean 'han'
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga review - just as mad without Max
George Miller’s latest dystopian dust-up in the desert
Album: Twenty One Pilots - Clancy
Pop-rock duo close their long-running narrative with aplomb
The Beach Boys, Disney+ review - heroes and villains and good vibrations
Stylish retelling of the Beach Boys saga could use sharper teeth
Richard III, Shakespeare's Globe review - Michelle Terry riffs with punk bravado
A female cast rips into toxic masculinity in a rebalanced treatment of villainy
Between Riverside and Crazy, Hampstead Theatre review - race, religion and rough justice
Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pulitzer-Prize winner finally makes it to London
Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - celestial navigation through a cabinet of wonders
Quirky but brilliant programme finds connections between unlikely bedfellows
Album: Isobel Campbell - Bow to Love
The Scottish singer's latest is woozy, ultra laidback and sometimes delicious
'I think of her as a proto-punk': documentarist Svetlana Zill on Anita Pallenberg
The co-director considers her revelatory account of the Stones' muse of mayhem
Add comment