MICHAEL : Tuesday 7th July 2026

I finally got around to seeing the PG Rated 'MICHAEL' which was released here in Australia on 23rd April. This American biographical musical drama film is Directed by Antoine Fuqua, whose previous feature film credits take in the likes of his debut in 1998 with 'The Replacement Killers' which he would follow up with 'Training Day' in 2001, 'Tears of the Sun' in 2003, 'Shooter' in 2007, 'Olympus Has Fallen' in 2013, 'Southpaw' in 2015, 'The Magnificent Seven' in 2016, and 'The Equalizer' trilogy in 2014, 2018 and 2023. He has also helmed a number of documentaries over the years including 'What's My Name : Muhammad Ali' in 2019. This film Premiered in Berlin on 10th April having cost in the region of US$200M to produce, but has since gone on to gross US$992M at the global Box Office despite fairly negative critical reviews. It is the highest grossing biographical film of all time, and the second highest grossing film of 2026 at the time of writing. In late May this year it was announced that a sequel was already in development. 

In 1966 in Gary, Indiana, steel factory worker Joseph Jackson (Colman Domingo) assembles his sons Jackie (Nathaniel Logan McIntyre), Tito (Judah Edwards), Jermaine (Jayden Harville), Marlon (Jaylen Lyndon Hunter), and his youngest son Michael (Juliano Krue Valdi), aged eight, into the musical band the Jackson 5, with Michael on lead vocals. 

After months of grueling rehearsals, involving corporal punishment from Joseph when their routine doesn't go according to his strict guidelines, the Jackson 5 perform at gigs until Suzanne De Passe (Laura Harrier) discovers them in Chicago in 1968, and they are signed with Motown a year later. 

Their albums top the charts, and they sell out concerts across the US, allowing them to move from their small house to the Hayvenhurst mansion in Encino, California, in 1971. Motown founder Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate) believes Michael has the potential to make it big as a solo artist - a notion that Joseph won't even entertain, for his focus sits squarely on the Jackson 5.

We then fast forward to 1978, and Michael (Jaafar Jackson) signs with Epic Records for his first solo album as an adult, 'Off the Wall' produced by Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson). Despite its success, Michael's solo career is held back by Joseph, who believes he is solely responsible for his children's success and fortunes. Michael is forced to continue touring with his brothers on the Triumph Tour (from July to September 1981 in the US and Canada). 

Feeling insecure about his appearance and developing vitiligo (a chronic autoimmune disorder that causes patches of skin to lose pigment or colour), Michael undergoes rhinoplasty surgery to alter the size and shape of his nose. Following an argument with Joseph, he takes advice from his bodyguard, driver and close friend, Bill Bray (KeiLyn Durrel Jones) to create his own path in life. In 1981, he hires John Branca (Miles Teller) as his lawyer and manager, and has him fire Joseph by fax.

Michael visits sick children in hospitals and experiments with ideas for his next album, which is set for release in 1982. After watching a news report on the Crips/Bloods gang war in his home studio, he hires members of both gangs to appear in his music video for 'Beat It'. 

'Thriller', the album, is released and breaks worldwide sales records while Michael delivers a groundbreaking performance of 'Billie Jean' at Motown 25. Michael and Branca head to New York to ask the CBS Records president, Walter Yetnikoff (Mike Myers), to have MTV play Michael's music videos, despite the network not playing videos by black artists, for fear of upsetting their largely white middle class American audience. MTV agrees to give him airtime after Yetnikoff threatens to pull the CBS Records catalogue out of the network, including such famed artists as Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper and Bob Dylan.

While Michael basks in the limelight of his global success, Joseph has a private meeting with the boxing promoter Don King (Deon Cole) and proposes the 1984 Victory Tour to reunite his sons. King offers Joseph a PepsiCo sponsorship deal, provided that Michael tours with the Jacksons, to which Michael objects. While the Jacksons film a Pepsi commercial in late January 1984, a spark from the staged pyrotechnics sets Michael's hair on fire, resulting in third-degree burns and nerve damage to his scalp. 

He was rushed to Brotman Medical Centre for extensive medical treatments. Instead of suing, he reached an out-of-court settlement with Pepsi for US$1.5M, which he donated the entire sum to Brotman Medical Centre to fund a newly established burns unit. In the hospital, comforted by his mother Katherine (Nia Long), Michael, when he is well enough, meets with the other patients as he considers his options on whether to get involved with the Victory Tour.

Once Michael recovers, he agrees to tour with his siblings. During the final show at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on 9th December 1984, they perform 'Human Nature' and 'Working Day and Night'. Michael announces it is the last time the Jacksons will perform together, much to the surprise of his siblings and severing his ties finally with Joseph—much to his fathers horror. Michael performs his first solo tour, the Bad World Tour (from mid-September 1987 through until the end of January 1989, and takes in 123 shows), and at Wembley Stadium in July 1988 to an ecstatic crowd, and over the course of seven sold out concerts he promotes his seventh studio album 'Bad' released in 1987. 

Also starring Jamal R. Henerson, Tre Horton, Rhyan Hill, Joseph David-Jones and Jessica Sula as Jermaine, Marlon, Tito, Jackie and La Toya - Michael's older siblings respectively. 

Charting the early life and the golden era of Michael Jackson, the self proclaimed 'King of Pop' is here offered up in a sanitised version of his life that is a celebration of his music, his dance, and perhaps to a lesser extent his mark on fashion, and his desire to make the world a better place through the power of his music. And on that level this film succeeds, backed up by top notch performances from Juliano Valdi and Jaafar Jackson as the younger and older Michael respectively, Colman Domingo as the controlling and seemingly never satisfied Joseph Jackson, and first rate production values in recreating his song and dance routines, and some of the most iconic performances from his early solo career. For fans of Michael Jackson, this film is sure to please, but if your are looking for more of what made MJ really tick and the truth behind the legend, then you will be left wanting. This film doesn't tell us anything that we didn't already know about the man, and on that front the film is a let down. Having said that, a title card before the end credits roll tells the audience that 'His Story Continues' and as we now know a sequel is in the works which you would like to believe will hopefully answer all of those unanswered questions and address the big elephant in the room. 

'Michael' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-