The Cinephile Mind Podcast

Ep. 9: MICHAEL Review | Does the Michael Jackson Biopic Capture the Legend?

• Miguel Mateo • Season 1 • Episode 9

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In Episode 9 of The Cinephile Mind Podcast, we take a deep dive into MICHAEL, the long-awaited biopic chronicling the life and legacy of Michael Jackson.

Few artists have shaped music, performance, and pop culture the way Michael Jackson did, and bringing that story to the screen comes with enormous expectations. In this episode, we discuss whether MICHAEL rises to meet that challenge or struggles under the weight of its subject.

We break down the performances, storytelling choices, and musical sequences, while also exploring how the film approaches Jackson’s legacy and the complexities that come with telling his story. Along the way, we talk about what makes a great music biopic and where MICHAEL fits within that tradition.

In this episode, we discuss:

• First impressions of MICHAEL
• The performances and character portrayals
• Story structure and emotional impact
• The film’s music and choreography
• How the film handles legacy and controversy
• Awards season and audience reception potential
• Final verdict: Does MICHAEL honor the legend?

Whether you're a lifelong fan of Michael Jackson, a lover of music biopics, or just curious about one of the year's most talked-about films, this episode offers a thoughtful conversation about the film and the legacy behind it.

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome, guys, to uh a quick and new episode of the Cinephile Mind. The three of us just went and saw an early screening of Michael, the new biopic about esteemed King of Pop, Michael Jackson. And I think each of us have thoughts on it that we'd love to share with you.

SPEAKER_01

This movie was devoid of any artistry whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00

Let's just jump right into it, yo. Like that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Let's let's talk about the good before we go to the show.

SPEAKER_00

I was gonna say, Jack challenged me to say three good things about this movie. So I think saying good we should probably start with the good, right?

SPEAKER_01

Started off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What is good about this movie? I am a little insanely biased about this movie because I grew up around Michael Jackson and I love his music. Yeah, my both my parents love Michael Jackson.

SPEAKER_01

So like you go to Neverland?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I grew up at Neverland Ranch. I rode the giraffe. Bubbles? I rode, I rode the giraffe. But seeing this in the theaters, like with the big Dolby Atmos speakers, honestly, it is still awesome. Just the music in general. To me, this was kind of just like a concert movie for me, where like by the time I realized that I was like, I don't think I'm gonna like this movie. I kind of was like, okay, but I I am gonna like this stuff. The performances are I can't tell if they're recorded over it. They seem like they are just the original tracks with performances over them. I can't tell if they re-recorded.

SPEAKER_02

I was impressed by some of the audio and the isolated singing and vocals when he was in the studio. And then obviously for like some of the live performances, I'm not sure what sort of archival audio they were grabbing that from versus like re-recording things. But yeah, I was definitely impressed by that. Some of it sounded really like clear and like it made you feel present when he was performing live or in the studio.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the tracks are great, but I mean, like, it's hard to like attribute these to positives to the movie. The tracks are great outside of a film as well. Like, well, I don't need to watch a movie to see these. Go ahead, Miguel.

SPEAKER_01

No, I was gonna say, like, I like yourself, very biased as well. I mean, I grew up to you know his music. My parents would always play. My parents love Motown, period. They would always play like the Jat Sid Five and all the Motown artists, and that also segued into his discography. And I mean, I know these songs by heart. It's like um like watching the movie, cringing some of these scenes, but at the same time, like my feet were dancing because like I'm like enjoying these performances, and it's also like a great reminder of how original of an artist he truly was. Yes, we've we don't even want to go down that route of like you know, focusing on the on the controversies, but the world has focused a lot on that. But like remembering the the artist that he was is and seeing it on the big screen was it was was great.

SPEAKER_00

I mean the these are almost like Marvel movies at this point, where like this movie is is like you know, they shoot the thriller video again, and I'm like, oh, there it is, there's the jacket, there it is, oh, there's the moonwalk. Like it's a lot of like skipping through just beat by beat, and then it's like okay, we're gonna do the moonwalk scene now. Here's the thriller scene now, and it's like you know, I like these things. I'm like, when I see it, I'll you know, I'm doing the Leonardo DiCaprio thing, and uh, but I'm still like, okay, the dopamine's worn off now, and now I'm back to the movie. Yeah. Like, and what else is going on here?

SPEAKER_01

I don't even know who wrote this movie, but it's as if they prompted Chad GPT to write a script about Michael Jackson's early life through the 80s. What I hate about these music biopics is it feels like it always has the need to like check off these boxes and hit certain bullet points about that person's career and their life. And we know all of this already. What we want to get out of the movie is kind of get in his head, and I feel like we didn't really get a chance to see that.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, one of the interesting or like stranger parts of the movie for me was it felt like they kept focusing on this relationship that he had with his bodyguard, I believe, Bill. Yeah. But it felt so one-sided, and kind of to Miguel's point, the goal of going into a biopic is to immerse yourself more into the artistry or just learn more about them as a person. And that relationship being so pivotal throughout the film, but it felt so one-sided, it felt like you're not really getting much out of it. And that sense of like concern for one another or like sentimental investment, it just didn't really pay off to how much their relationship was being shown on screen.

SPEAKER_01

Well, wouldn't it be more interesting if like the entire film was from the point of view of the bodyguard? Some scenes were seen through his eyes. That would have been more that would have been different, that or that would have been original at least.

SPEAKER_02

I kind of loved that scene where Joe and Michael had gotten into a fight, and then Michael runs out and tells Bill to drive him. And you kind of see that's like probably the most emotion you see out of those two together. Or and really the my criticism is like it felt like they weren't really going far enough with like I don't know, I feel like they barely gave the bodyguard dialogue or just any sort of like again that payoff back to what you were sensing between their relationship. But I did like that scene. I think to your point, they could have built more around that.

SPEAKER_01

It's like Michael through the eyes of everyone around him would have been more interesting.

SPEAKER_00

I'm curious, like if you guys enjoyed, I feel like I enjoyed the beginning, the Motown stuff a lot more. It might just be because it was almost entirely Jackson 5 music for like the first like 45 minutes, the prologue. I think that may have rubbed me in that way to make me enjoy the intro a little more. But the the layout of this movie is so drab and by the books. I mean, it is literally like we do a scene, we should we timestamp the shot, literally. Like, here what here's what year it is, here's where we are, here's the scene, and then we do it again. We timestamp and we go in like chronological order very slowly. It is this movie is not ambitious uh at all in like how it wants to tell this story.

SPEAKER_01

If anything, we learn more about Michael as a little kid, and I think because we saw him more as an actual person rather than this caricature of Michael Jackson, this impersonation of Michael Jackson being played by his own nephew, I believe.

SPEAKER_00

Do you like his performance? I feel like they don't portray Michael Jackson in too grand of a way. Like he is portrayed as as awkward and weird as I would imagine him. They pick up on a lot of that instead of making him like I kept thinking they were gonna shoehorn some scene in where like he steps up to Joe Jackson and it's like, oh no, dad, no more. But they do keep subverting it where he's like, No, he's so you know awkward, like he's just gonna punt this off to someone else because there's no way he could have that conversation with someone. I like the performance uh a lot, but it is just like the writing that that gets me where it's like I we don't really get to dive into Michael as a character, and even though this movie gets away with it, I think a little bit because they cut it off before kind of Michael enters the zeitgeist, but there's still so much going on with Michael's character as in that age, you know, he's got insane body dysmorphia, insane abuse issues. It blew my mind that the like rhinoplasty scene is basically spurred on by like one comment by Joe Jackson as a kid where he's like, You have a big nose, and that's it. I'm like, that there's so much more here. And he's got very few scenes where he's like acknowledging his skin disorders. It's like you don't get to see the dark sides of the of Michael.

SPEAKER_01

No, I mean he enjoyed his his animal friends.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but I can't the the monkey dude get that out of the movie as soon as possible. As I saw that monkey, I'm like, we are doing this.

SPEAKER_02

I think on like a broader scale, the CG in general in this movie, get it out of here. With them I I don't know what the budget for the movie was, but I'm assuming it's 200 million dollars. If they couldn't pull it off. And I'm talking about like there were shots of like the crowd at different shows that he like there were so many elements that were CG and they were goofy and poorly executed to the point where it's yeah, someone mentioned a caricature and it just amplified that feeling. The the chimp or the yeah, the chimp and the crowds and and I think it distracted from some of the other makeup chore-wise, at least for Michael's character, done seemingly pretty well. But then you have these other elements that just bring it down because they're so distracting and they're so like artificial.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, the monkey was so distracting. It it felt like they were trying to do like a like a Goku thing. Like, look at the cute sidekick that Michael Jackson has, and it he's in the movie a decent amount for like what it provides to the story. I I I guess they're trying to like push more, they push a lot on like just how like generous, like how how kind Michael was during this era of his life. You know, he's always visiting like make a wish kids, he's adopting monkeys from like makeup factories that are testing on monkeys. What was I thinking? It the movie is weird because it's it's ominous because it doesn't recognize any of these things and and because it cuts it off before it can even acknowledge it. Like, we keep getting scenes where Michael is interacting with children, and these are real things that Michael Jackson did probably out of good faith, right? Like doing make-a-wish stuff, like buying toys for kids, all that stuff, but it's ominous. Like, we keep talking about Neverland, we're talking about all this stuff, and it's weird, and you know what's coming, but it doesn't pay off in any way, and the movie doesn't not have any interest in diving into those things, and it just because of what we know at this point, it makes it awkward.

SPEAKER_01

The sequel, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The sequel. Michael Jackson will return.

SPEAKER_02

I think those are larger issues that that estate would never sell rights to tell that story.

SPEAKER_01

So that's the most apparent reason why we're getting the stories that we are. It was very noticeable that Janet Jackson was not part of the family. 100%. Yeah. Because she she did not want to be part of this retelling of her brother's life.

SPEAKER_00

It's fine to not. I I mean, I don't know if it's fine, but you know, if you're going to do this, I guess you you just kind of have to take this punch that like the movie is gonna be weird. Just that like we're not gonna acknowledge this stuff and we're gonna keep talking about stuff that is uncomfortable with Michael's life, and then cruise past it. It just makes kind of like a jarring movie.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I feel like we just need to start looking at biopits, music biopics specifically, as a separate entity from cinema and start treating it as a VH1 behind the music episode in narrative form. Then this film would be one of the more entertaining episodes in that series. It did entertain, then five minutes later, it would make me cringe, it would make me want to dance two minutes later and make me cringe again. It just keeps going back and forth. And Coleman Domingo, I thought, was good, as he always is.

SPEAKER_00

It is willing to engage with that part of the Jacksonist that like Joe Jackson was the man he was. Yeah, it it towards the beginning. I was getting a little worried because I'm like, you know, Joe Jackson was like whipping his kids, dude. Like, are we really they're they're kind of at the beginning, it almost seems like they're making them kind of like a holier than thou. Like, I'm tough, but like this is good for you. Yeah, look what I'm doing for you. But they luckily they they're willing to you know crucify Joe Jackson, but no one else in the movie.

SPEAKER_02

That's the thing, it wasn't afraid to touch drug addiction issues coming out of his incident with the fire, obviously those family dynamics. So it did tackle certain things that weren't already.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it just it does them with like the tact of of like setting up a new Marvel movie where it's like, yeah, one of the climaxes of the movie is the like pyrotechnics incident, and then it's just like alluding, like maybe later we'll do drug addiction stuff, and you're like, Okay. I like I don't feel like we're still yeah, like are we setting up we're setting up sequels in this biopic about one of the most like traumatized, like interesting men in the in the music industry?

SPEAKER_01

I think Michael could have used a couple scenes where like we just get to sit down with Michael and get to know him a little better. Because even like Bohemian Rhapsody had that, where like he was reflecting on his life, and we didn't get that with Michael.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, if you extract the real life aspect of this and you're just like, this is a fictional movie about like a famous like music star, there's like nothing to chew on there with Michael, like it's all based on fan service and like what we already know. It doesn't stand on its own, it all it's completely propped up by the like controversies and all the surrounding material around it, which is bad to me. I feel like that's not what you should be going for. Oh no, you should know nothing about Michael, and you should still be like, This is a captivating movie about like a troubled man. Huge benefit of this movie being you know produced by the Jackson Estate is they have full access to all of Michael's looks, all his costumes, and they look incredible, but it is key jinkling to a degree. But the costumes look insane. It is so fun to watch them like recreate some of the off-the-wall music videos, um see some of the costumes just like, and I honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they are just the costumes, or at least like very high detailed replicas of them. And so I will give positives to that is like you know, this is like a Taylor Swift eras tour for me. I just wish they would take out everything else because it's not it doesn't serve a purpose to me. The story we're telling about Michael's life here is not beneficial. I would almost just prefer being like, we've recreated all these amazing moments. The the movie aspect of it isn't working. I would much prefer to just see a concert of all these incredible recreations, and that's it.

SPEAKER_02

You know, they did really gloss over his relationship with anyone else other than his dad and somewhat his mom.

SPEAKER_00

It's just such a level of like disingenuousness in the movie where I'm like, I don't even know, like, I don't even know if Michael had a good relationship with his mom. Like, is this just like feel good? Is this hope core here that I'm here for? And then there's really just like the overall question was or which is like, is this even the format to talk about like what what is would be coming in a sequel to this movie? Like, are we really gonna be talking about like court cases? Is there a sequel? They've hinted heavily at it. They said Michael's story will continue at the end, but it's like continue to where? Like, it's just tragic. Michael is literally like a Shakespearean character, he's so tragic his entire life, going from like this destined character to spread the word of music to people and then just fall from grace. He has so many lessons to teach us. There are important stories to tell, and I don't think we'll ever like have a mature conversation, at least in the cinema, about Michael Jackson.

SPEAKER_01

But it was enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00

It was fun, though. I will say, uh it was fun. If you like Michael Jackson's songs, then yeah.

SPEAKER_01

If you like Michael Jackson, you will like it enough.

SPEAKER_00

It's not the worst movie. Like, I went into this movie being like, this is gonna be so bad. It's not the worst movie ever made. It's like on par with a Bohemian Rhapsody in terms of inoffensiveness.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, I think the Rotten Tomatoes, I don't know what it's sitting at now, maybe a bit harsh. But again, it's also like through the lens of if you like Michael Jackson enough, you'll find something to enjoy about it.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I think we're just having a discussion about this movie where it's like the OJ thing you shared, Miguel, where it's like, are we really making a movie about OJ? And we're not gonna talk about like what is it? Murders, like I think the discussion around the ratings is around like, is it our is it the filmmaker's responsibility at this point to talk about these things and lay them out? And I just don't know. It it does not feel like the appropriate format to talk about these things, at the very least.

SPEAKER_01

I found the tweet. My favorite Michael review. It's like watching an OJ biopic that ends with him winning the Heisman trophy.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, yeah, yeah, it just cuts it off. Like, and then nothing happened ever again.

SPEAKER_02

I also and I I guess it didn't go into the 90s, which is why, but it also seemed like the Super Bowl halftime was right there, and that seemed like a pivotal thing that they could have still ended with him on top, given this incredible performance. That would have been like a peak performance to end that sort of sequence on.

SPEAKER_00

They choose to end it instead with like a Michael finally. It's definitely like the villain of the movie is Joe Jackson. So they were like, they're like, we're gonna pick a moment where Michael can like stick it to Joe Jackson and like mature as an adult. But it that's also funny because you're like Michael Jackson never matured as an adult. He was like permanent, he never really recovered from Joe Jackson's abuse, and it's like it just feels kind of empty. Again, it's just the context around everything makes this movie ominous and odd to watch it. And it's hard to celebrate the wins in the movie when you're like, I know what's coming next, though. Oh, I'll give it props, though. Pretty good performances from the lead actors. I I don't even want to talk about Miles Teller, he's just kind of there. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

He just kind of shows up.

SPEAKER_00

He would give that look every now and then, like ignoring Miles Teller.

SPEAKER_02

And he looked, his look was like John Cusack. That's why I was like, Oh yeah, just made him look like John Cusack.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so Miles Teller's in there, but yeah, but Jafar Jackson, he was very especially in the scenes where like you know, he's he is being Michael Jackson the performer, he moved like him and like it's just speaking, yeah, all of it.

SPEAKER_00

He captured it. You know, I think people forget Michael Jackson still was was was like a little sweetheart, like a little boy at heart, and so like he is so like delicate and and sweet and gentle the way he acts, and he he nails it. Like I you were I really like I'm like falling in love with like old Michael Jackson again, where I'm like, he's so sweet, I love him, and and it's just really it I think people always felt that way until controversy started happening, and it it's it's almost like teleporting back in time a little bit to before we knew everything we did, and it's like this is how people viewed Michael Jackson, like this is who he was back then, and that's incredible to to achieve that in a movie.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I got into my car, I started listening to his discography again, and I'm probably I probably will be listening to his greatest hits, the next couple of years. MJ, number one, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know, you would hear like interviews and stuff, mostly I guess from his family, and who knows how much of this is like PR sort of stuff, but just talking about his like sense of humor, and I feel like there was only a few moments in the movie where his character delivered like funny lines, and the one that jumped out was he made a joke about kind of channeling to God, otherwise he would give the song to Prince, to Prince, and that was like a funny little moment. That was funny, but and and maybe that's again part of the broader, like systemic issue with the movie is because it doesn't give you that larger insight into him as a person. You don't you don't really see that many other moments where he's like being funny or just more of a character than you would already know him as.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean these characters require balance, and like Michael is portrayed just amazing the entire movie. It's hard to think that this movie is being genuine when we're we're not allowed a glimpse behind the curtain ever during this movie. There's no in-between, it is it is just like a little bit of a Jackson Estate Glaze Fest. They they pin all their their grievances on Joe Jackson, which are deserved, but they pin it all on him, and they're like, everyone else was awesome. That's kind of like the morals of the movie.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I want it to be like, Yeah, mom, you couldn't say anything twenty. Years earlier, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00

We're not gonna touch that. We're not gonna touch anything. You know, it's just a very buy the books, safe. There's no interesting edits or shots in this movie. It is very straightforward Wikipedia article about Michael Jackson's life, and you get to listen to a lot of the music. So, like, that's like it's like a two-star movie for me, but like it does those things well. And I think most people that are going to see this movie are like, I just want to see the thriller music video again.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, that's why they spend like an entire like 10 minutes on making behind the scenes of like the thriller video or behind the scenes of the beaded video.

SPEAKER_00

You can't gut this movie for like not being some like making a murderer type of thing. It's like, look at this evil man. Oh no, for sure. It's just like a it is a product at this point, and it's disappointing. There's definitely like a more interesting movie that no one is willing to make. This is fine for what it is. Yeah. I guess.

SPEAKER_01

One thing I was gonna say earlier, it's crazy to think this this was like in the 80s that MTV wasn't playing any videos by black artists until Michael Jackson, which is I mean, that's insane.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I mean, obviously, they were juxtaposing it in the movie with him like walking out of the studio headquarters onto the street, and it's like closed down and floods of people trying to catch a glimpse of him. So obviously, that was probably embellished a bit, but just the idea of his popularity even up to that point not being enough to push him over the finish line without requiring like that phone call is insane, too.

SPEAKER_00

It's just another it's like another pain point for me, where this is another part of Michael Jackson's life that would be so interesting to talk about is how he like pushed black artists into the mainstream, like into the the number ones. Like this was not this dude was not just like an African-American artist, he was Michael Jackson. They were eliminated that race barrier. They don't talk about race really at all, except for that MTV thing, which is crazy because Jackson's born in the 60s, like his family's dealt with a ton of crap. This is the Marvel endgame of music biopics. We've been talking about this one for like a decade, I feel like. If you like this Michael Jackson movie, what I'm gonna do is grab you by the shoulders and I'm gonna tell you, I'm so happy the movie resonated with you in that level. That's so great. That's awesome for you. I'm not mad about it at all.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Well, if you want to be starting something with the Cinefile Mind, go to the Cinefile Mind.com or search us up on your favorite social media platform with the same handle. Check you out soon.