Review of Michael: the Life of the King of Pop

Michael. Released on April 24, 2026. A Michael Jackson biopic starring his own nephew. The King of Pop surges back to life. A storytelling behind the complex lifestyle of our beloved superstar. Theaters have been filling up with fans reaching out to feel this magic once again. But is this movie as supreme as it seems?

As someone who watched the movie quite recently, with a positive mindset going into the cinema, I say no. Now, this is an EXTREMELY controversial opinion. Why? Most people expect this movie to be spectacular because of the reviews and feedback, but as a lover of music and a passionate soul for biopics, I believed this movie was unable to fulfill its full potential.

Beginning with a short summary, this movie is about how Michael Jackson struggled through his battles with his dad, the evolution of the Jackson 5, and eventually the rise of his fame and power. This movie was able to incorporate significant events of his personal life and musical career and illustrate what he was going through as an African American breaking through the barriers of pop music. However, not everything was incorporated as it should have been.

1. Music

Anyone who has heard the name Michael Jackson knows he is a famous singer. Obviously. So why was the movie lacking in musical representation? This movie only has 13 songs in its soundtrack compared to his range of 150-160 songs that he has produced in total in his lifetime. Moreover, numerous songs were included in the scenes with the Jackson 5, not Michael Jackson as a solo artist. Yes, his role in the Jackson 5 was unimaginably crucial for his life, but then why is the movie not called "The Jackson 5" or even "Jackson?" It's called Michael to emphasize HIS life and HIS music career.

Additionally, the songs from his solo career were featured in scenes where he was performing, and although this did provide a strong representation of his fame and skills as an entertainer, it offered almost no insight into the details of the songs.

Biopics are meant to give people a more in-depth story about someone's life, and as an artist and musician, the movie would have had more juice to it if it included parts of him writing his music, coming up with dances, or finding out where he got inspiration for his music videos and other projects.

Instead, it felt more like a movie designed around his struggles with his dad, the forced formation of the Jackson 5, his immediate vocal talent, and the dragging around of the five brothers to performances and shows. It was only about halfway into the movie that the beginning of his adult life and actual production of his own music began. This was unnecessarily extended and left out lots of his music that could have replaced lots of scenes and would have better showcased his personality and his life as a singer.

CBS Television from Wikimedia Commons

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2. Dancing

The Moonwalk. The Anti-Gravity Lean. The Toe Stand. All of these came from the one and only MJ. So where was it in the biopic? It's shocking how the bare minimum was hardly even met for these moves. The Moonwalk was displayed during a couple of his performances, same with the Toe Stand, and the Anti-Gravity Lean was not even mentioned for one second. For the number of performances added into the movie, the dances should have been a way larger part of these segments.

Every time the Moonwalk appeared, it was a spark of wow and, honestly, surprise, because of how rare it made an appearance. Even though it is Michael's signature move, he barely danced at all. It's like if Elvis Presley never shook his hips in a live performance. Same with the Toe Stand. Maybe one or two performances were up on his toes, and the rest of them were just him singing as a kid or with his brothers.

I can't even bother to mention the Anti-Gravity Lean because it was never part of the picture. I was so hyper-focused on the other scenes that I forgot about another world-changing dance move that, well, defied gravity.

All of these major actions that made Michael Jackson who he was were left out of the movie, especially his dances, which were partially what defined who he was as a musical artist and the impact he left on our world. Dancing is a form of art and a way of expression, and his emotions were not delivered thoroughly to the audience in this movie.

Israel Torres from Pexels

3. Unnecessary Scenes

Now, this is one thing that not only I am critiquing in this part of the biopic, but there were multitudes with the same complaint: too many scenes of him signing autographs. The first time around, I thought it was super sweet how they showed how kind he is to all his fans and how willing he is to stop whatever he's doing to meet his young fans. But the more times it came up, the more it felt like buffers in between scenes and cuts. The fan signings eventually lost meaning and took up more and more minutes of the movie that should have been spent focusing more on music or dancing.

Within the first five minutes of the movie, there was a scene shot with Michael and his four other brothers practicing a song in front of their father. There are many times when Michael's dad tells Michael to keep eye contact with him, and he fails to. Deeper into the movie, when the Jackson 5 continue to practice in front of their father, his dad has to remind him repeatedly. While watching the movie, I thought his failure to keep eye contact with his father would have some sort of significance, maybe foreshadowing some social issues or an impact on his public figure, but it didn't. This left me wondering why they even bothered to keep bringing it up at all.

In the movie, they brought up his tragic pyrotechnics accident in 1984. During a live Pepsi commercial in Los Angeles, his hair caught on fire from a malfunction in the technicals, and the fireworks exploded too early, leading him to have severe second and third-degree burns on his scalp. This event inspired him to donate all of his money not to a lawsuit, but instead to burn centers, and ignited his addiction to painkillers and plastic surgery to tolerate pain; but for this movie specifically, this scene did not have to come in. Yes, it was a massive tragedy that affected him forever and gave him lifelong consequences of pain and misery. Yes, it was extremely impactful on his health, lifestyle, fans, and family. Yes, it was heartbreaking to see our king suffer through a life-threatening injury. But in the movie, did it connect to another major event? No. Did it foreshadow his health issues in the near future? No. Did it lead on to a focus on his reliance on drugs and medication? No. Was it anything but a small mention in the movie and a tiny hiccup in the order of events? No! The way that this movie was structured was based around good things and positive influences he had on the world. Not on his accidents or addictions. So this hospital scene did no good to the plot of the movie, only making it a random segment where he gets hurt, recovers, and returns to his normal life. For his biopic specifically, this scene was distant from the others and didn't feel needed to keep the shots flowing smoother than it already was.

Image Credits: Alan Light from Wikimedia Commons

4. Ending

The producer, Graham King, also produced the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody about the rock band, Queen, in addition to this movie, and used the same structure of beginning and end: He played a few minutes of a famous performance in the beginning then yanked the viewers back in time to the singer's childhood until the movie eventually ended back at the same place that it started from: That one big show. In Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie begins and ends with the world-famous Live Aid concert, ending with Freddie Mercury walking off the stage with pride and honor, also symbolizing the nearing end of his musical career and the checkpoint which marked his exposure to AIDS. After this performance, he only released a few more records and was unable to continue making music the same way, slowly degrading from the horrendous pandemic. In contrast to Michael, however, it begins with one of his performances of "Bad."

Now, this is not a poor choice of song, but to end during a time period of the 1980s when his music career continued for multiple more decades, this was a lousy way to end, clearly with unfinished business. They left out the release of his eighth studio album, his dramatic court case, his marriage to Lisa Presley, another album release, his marriages, and the closing of his case. This significantly changed his life and musical career, but the movie was left incomplete, with the audience wondering what happened afterwards.

It would have been a great improvement if the movie concluded with his sold-out show from his This Is It residency, performing "Earth Song," which would not only have been one of his greatest and most memorable performances, like Live Aid for Queen, but it would have captured the magic one last time before his passing.

Instead, the movie ended after he announced his last performance with the Jackson 5 and the subtle implication that the shows should be considered a "farewell tour." This originally gave me excitement to see how they would show his life afterwards, and the solo production of his own music with his own style, but none of that came. It didn't feel like a conclusion; it felt like there should be another sequel after this one, considering he had so much more to give after this one performance.

Image Credits: Comunità Queeniana from Wikimedia Commons

Michael was meant to be spectacular for our King of Pop and was made to showcase his life and music, but in my opinion, it failed to do that. It was not a completely poor movie, just had some areas where there was more potential that could have and should have been met for someone of such high standard as Michael Jackson. Everyone believes he was a good person and a splendid artist and entertainer, and that is what was hoped to have come out of his biopic. This review can definitely be controversial, and as a new fan of Michael Jackson, it's hard to critique everything accurately and with adequate information. However, as a fan of all music and all biopics, it may be better just to watch Michael's performances and shows and relive the magic through that.