DIRECTOR: Kenny OrtegaThis Isn't It, would be a more apt title. Instead, this is a great featurette for a concert movie of a fifty-date gig that never happened; a curio that outstays its welcome as an unintended documentary-concert film, basically. Comprised of rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson preparing for his sellout "comeback" gigs at London's O2 Arena, in the months before his tragic death, everything here was intended to be kept as a personal record by Jackson's estate for his own entertainment. It's now become the King Of Pop's epitaph; a chance for diehard fans and the curious masses to get a glimpse of a spectacle and performance denied to the world...
RUNNING TIME: 111 mins. BUDGET: $60m
The film's largely impervious to criticism, because your decision to watch it will be entirely based on how much of a Jacksonite you are, or how inquisitive you feel towards this curio. The fact the whole project was never intended to be shown to an audience also means you have to forgive the fact it doesn't really have a fantastic structure or much insight to impart. It's footage edited together to give you a taster of the stage show, its design, conception and -- perhaps above all -- allows us to see what kind of mental and physical condition the fifty-year-old Jackson was in. Thankfully, This Is It seems to prove that tittle-tattle about M.J arriving late to rehearsals, in an exhausted state, or simply failing to show up at all, was nothing but unfounded gossip. Then again, it's not really director Kenny Ortega's intention to show the absolute truth, because this movie is designed to deify Jacko to some extent and give fans one last chance to bask in their musical hero's genius.
And he was a genius, it has to be said, if not the pop-culture Christ he's often treated as by emotional dancers who open this documentary with tears over how they can't believe they're involved, or even get to be in the same room as the King Of Pop. I'm sure B-rolls must exist somewhere of various acolytes licking the ground Jackson's just walked on. Still, ignoring This Is It's sometimes mawkish attitude and reverence for its star, what do we get out of this last-minute project? Well, it's safe to say that Jackson's vocals were pretty sharp and he was still a nifty mover for a fifty-year-old man with health issues.
Naturally, there are times when his keen backing singers (most less than half his age) overshadow Jacko with their quicker, snappier reenactments of dance moves he made famous, but you're not really getting Jacko at 100% here anyway. As he makes clear throughout, often in a quiet apologetic voice to his "audience" of whooping onlookers, he's "saving his throat" and rarely makes an attempt to hit any high-notes. The same reserve can be found in much of his choreography, which is mostly performed at half-speed or low energy, which can't help being something of a disappointment when such body-popping classics like "Smooth Criminal", "Thriller" and "Beat It" slip by in a rather muted, perfunctory fashion. By the time "Billie Jean" rolled up near the end, my finger was poised on the fast-forward button.
You also don't really get much of a clear idea what the live show would have felt like, as the film is just too much of a hodgepodge. There would have been dancers exploding from the stage, pole-dancers, a laughable spider for Jacko to crawl out of, and lots of expensive-looking cut-scenes to show on the giant screen at the rear -- from digitized soldiers dancing en masse to "They Don't Care About Us", to a little girl rescuing a plant from a bulldozer for "Earth Song", or Jackson digitally-integrated into the movie Gilda alongside Rita Hayworth for "Smooth Criminal", and a sanitized graveyard sequence for "Thriller" that just goes to show what happens when you replace the director of An American Werewolf In London with the guy behind the High School Musical trilogy.
Still, it's perhaps unfair to criticize a piece of entertainment that was never designed to be entertainment. This Is It is still an interesting peek behind the curtain of a pop icon, during the final period of his life where gossip, hearsay and rumours were about all anyone knew of the man. This movie isn't vindication that Jacko's O2 tenure would have been polished enough to straighten his dented crown, but it's enough for you to have been sure it would have been a decent spectacle and far from the embarrassing flop everyone was quietly expecting.
DVD Review
Picture (1.78:1 Anamorphic PAL) The image quality is crisp and clear for DVD, but these days I'm so spoiled by Blu-ray's high definition precision that I missed that format's punch and depth, particularly as the cameras being used were HD quality.
Sound (English DD5.1) It's a big disappointment that there's no DTS track here, but the sound mix in DD5.1 is still fairly decent and, generally, lets Jackson's music provide half your emotional response to the film.
Special Features
Staging the Return (40 mins) This is the main featurette of this 2 disc set, split into "The Adventure Begins" and "Beyond The Show" chapters. It does a better job of explaining the process of putting together a concert of this magnitude, with plenty of behind-the-scenes footage and talking heads, but this will clearly only be of huge interest to fans.
The Gloved One (14 mins) This is a more interesting featurette than I was expecting, as we're given a look at Jackson's many costumes – with the standout being a "Billie Jean" outfit with tiny lights up the leg and a strobing glove.
Memories of Michael (15 mins) The expected, gushing tribute to Jackson from everyone involved in the concert, which the movie itself most avoided.
Auditions: Searching For The Best Dancers In The World (9 mins) A relatively dull featurette about the process of auditioning dancers for This Is It, all of whom are overjoyed to even be involved at the audition stage. There is, naturally, a slight feeling of sadness that so many people's dreams of sharing a stage with Jackson were dealt such a blow by the singer's death.
The Unfinished Rehearsals (9 mins) A definite small highlight is this featurette, mainly focusing on the raunchy plan for "Dirty Diana", featuring a large bed "on fire" with four poles and dancers.
Theatrical Trailer: The trailer is probably more emotive than the film in some ways, as it has more of an exciting spark of promise that the film itself lacks.
Trailer: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs gets a promo.
Meet The Dancers (25 mins), Meet The Band (11 mins) and Meet The Vocalists (11 mins) are featurettes contained on the second disc, and do pretty much what you expect of them.
