The modern musical biopic is less biography and more hagiography, usually with a great soundtrack. Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis, and Walk the Line have no interest in telling the real story of the people who made the songs we love. Instead they exist to let the audience sing along with pop hits, to reward those who know little bits of trivia, and to ensure fans that everyone involved are very good people indeed.On those terms, Michael is very much a by-the-numbers modern musical biopic. It whisks the viewer from year to year, pausing to recreate iconic moments (e.g., debuting the moonwalk at the Motown Records 25th Anniversary concert), and playing wall-to-wall hit songs. But in an effort to completely avoid the sexual abuse allegations and general oddness that marked the artist’s later life, Michael doesn’t just soften the edges of the subject; it completely transfigures Michael Jackson, framing him as a cosmic force for good, loved by everyone except his diabolical father, Joseph.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});Completely inured to Walk Hard‘s critiques, Michael indeed begins with MJ thinking about his entire life before he plays, waiting to go onstage to promote the release of 1987’s Bad and thinking back to his childhood in Gary, Indiana. There we’re treated to the family dynamics that will play out again and again in the film. Young Michael (played as a child by Juliano Valdi) loves to perform with his brothers, but they can never please their domineering father Joseph (Colman Domingo). Long-suffering mother Katherine (Nia Long) tries to balance dad, but Joseph demands nothing short of perfection while stifling any of Michael’s criticisms by beating him with a belt.Twenty minutes in, Michael has grown to adulthood (now played by Jaafar Jackson, real-life son of Jermaine and nephew to Michael), but longs for his lost childhood. He continuously acquires new animals for his menagerie, collects Disney memorabilia, and enjoys late-night ice creams with his mother. Most of all, Michael wants to express himself, to make the music that matters to him, a desire threatened by his controlling father.In the broadest of strokes, director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan show no interest in breaking the standard musical biopic tropes, even when they stretch believability. So when Michael turns on the television immediately after saying that he wishes his music could make a difference in the world, you know that he’s going to see something about street gang violence. Fuqua cuts from grainy news footage of Crips and Bloods swearing undying hatred back to Michael, looking on with endless compassion. In the very next scene, he’s assembled actual gang members to watch him practice “Beat It.”In contrast to the barbarity shown on the news, the Crips and Bloods barely seem annoyed with one another in Michael’s soundstage. Nor do they poke any fun at the professional dancers cosplaying as street toughs who come to do choreography with MJ. Instead reaction shots reveal them looking on with awe and delight. Such is the power of Michael.Or so we assume, as the gang members never appear again in the film, having done their duty in proving the star’s incredible goodness. Such is the case with all of the normal people not fit to touch the hem of Michael’s glove. Throughout the movie, Michael will stop to give autographs to children or visit victims in the hospital. But outside of one or two minute-long conversations, the adoring public exists to do nothing more than that: adore.Astonishingly, Michael almost pulls it off. Not because of anything Fuqua does with the camera. While he does sometimes interject notes of style, such as giving the arrival of Bubbles the Monkey a full superhero-style reveal, or cutting from Joseph Jackson signing a promotional deal with Pepsi to Michael watching Charlie Chaplin struggle with a conveyor belt in Modern Times. Mostly though, he plays things straight.Still, the film almost works because of the central performances. Jaafar Jackson has an incredible smile and he knows how to use it on camera. He embodies both the gentle warmth of this movie’s Michael and can do the jaw-dropping dance moves of the real-life performer. The film doesn’t give him much interiority—even the brief acknowledgment of Michael’s predilection for plastic surgery is immediately externalized to be an extension of his father’s demands, with papa repeatedly calling his son “big nose.” But Jaafar delivers as a singing and dancing saint.Even better is Domingo, in an utterly over-the-top performance as Joseph. Bringing even less subtlety than he does playing a literal cartoon supervillain in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Domingo seems to channel Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy, and not just because of his wig and prosthetics. Domingo is all feral energy as Joseph, prowling around the Jackson home, staring down his family and letting his mouth dangle open, ready to devour his sons. Even before he meets in a lacquered office with promotor Don King (Deon Cole) to share cigars and cackle over their big business plans, Joseph is evil incarnate, and Domingo embraces the role without embarrassment.With stakes so over-the-top and morality so (forgive me) black or white, Michael almost works as a sweet children’s story. But because it’s a musical biopic, Michael has to ask the audience to remember certain things. We don’t get to hear all of “I Want You Back,” so we have to remember how neat it was to watch young Michael belt out those notes. We don’t get to see all of the “Thriller” music video, so we have to recall how the short film plays out.And yet, it unequivocally and desperately wants the audience to avoid remembering other things. We cannot remember MJ’s actual suffering, we cannot remember the inherent sadness and creepiness of his public persona past the early ’90s, and we absolutely must not remember the allegations that he also abused children.Instead Michael insists that we remember only the beautiful art that MJ was good enough to extend to us and to believe that, if anything at all was bad in the world of Michael Jackson, it was all the fault of Joseph. Such sins are hardly unique among musical biopics and, even more than the average biopic, the music here is incredible. But Michael‘s deification of its subject makes it hard to enjoy the film as anything other than a work of devotional art or camp of the highest level.Michael opens in theaters on April 24, 2026.The post Michael Review: A Sainted and Sanitized Michael Jackson appeared first on Den of Geek.