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Michael (PG-13)
After some lawsuits, re-shoots and a lot of controversy, the new Michael Jackson bio film hit theaters this week. Reviewers that got into the pre-release screenings were pretty harsh on it.
So is it worth seeing for the casual fan? I think for most fans of his music – yes.
It starts out at the very beginning of the Jackson family getting their musical jam together as very young kids. The five brothers rehearse in their little home, relentlessly. More on that in a minute.
By the time they started playing local clubs, it was already apparent that Michael Jackson was the most talented of the brothers in a performance way, and certainly vocally. The film takes its time showing us the slow rise to fame until Michael forges out a path of his own. Like every “true story” told by Hollywood, there may be many fabrications, mix-ups of timelines, etc., but for the overall theme of this film, none of that matters. It’s interesting stuff to see how the sausage was made.
Their father, Joe Jackson, was a harsh taskmaster, who drove his boys to rehearse constantly and reprimanded anyone who was soft. Especially Michael, the youngest of the group. It’s hard stuff to watch at times, and his heavy handed discipline was well-documented by the family over the years. But people have to remember that spanking disruptive children was the norm in the 1960s. Joe is painted as the antagonist throughout the movie. Fair enough.
But I think there’s another side that could’ve been fleshed out better and would have given this story a more even-handed view. If you want to truly excel at something, even more so if you want to be the best in the world at something, you have to be coached hard if not self-driven to relentlessly pursue your dream. Especially if you’re black folk living in Gary, Indiana, in the early 1960s. That’s not exactly the Mecca of the entertainment world, much less a place where you’re going to make a lot of money if you stick around.
Sure, those Jackson boys were relentlessly pushed by the equivalent of a drill sergeant in their formative years. But let’s keep it real. If you compare the Jackson’s outcome with the thousands of other black boys in crime-ridden Gary, Indiana, in the mid to late 60s, I expect a good double-digit number of their peers wound up in prison. And the rest of their peers never amounted to anything, much less performed to millions of fans around the world. Tough love was a necessary evil in that early environment.
That’s what I thought as I watched their dad get roasted for a full two hours straight in this bio.
There is controversy that Michael Jackson’s inappropriate behavior around young boys is never addressed in this film. That stuff was shot and then taken out, with the timeline adjusted so that the story ends before those allegations were brought up. Which is a fair defense on the part of the producers facing legal challenges. We only get to the beginnings of his long solo career, and by the two-hour mark, you’re ready for the credits to roll anyway.
The selling point for this movie is very much the same as the incredible documentary, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It.” That documentary film from 2009 is a must-see for anyone that has an appreciation for his music. Which turns out to be most people. The musical performances in this latest biography are shockingly good as well. Your brain may not be convinced at all that it’s really Michael on the screen. But his nephew, Jaafar Jackson, is close enough that the effect works. They know how to pace this thing, and by the end, the last series of songs really bring it home and make it worth the movie ticket price.
I went in expecting the worst, and came out glad that I saw it in the theater.
– See it on the Big Screen
Brothers Under Fire (R)
Kiefer Sutherland stars as a military captain who’s deployed in Syria. One of the men in his squad is going to get married to his Mexican wife in their hometown in Mexico, so 4 of the squad join him to attend his wedding. It’s an approved R&R trip.
The film then jumps to beautiful rural mountainous Mexico, and takes its time (nearly an hour) developing the story, showing us the large cast of the Mexican families attending the wedding, as well as a local cartel of bad guys. The cast is so solid, it’s relaxing enough to sit through the long set-up.
Eventually, the two groups clash, just as you would expect from such a film.
Overall, it’s an OK story, in a direct-to-video kind of way. There’s a good deal of bloodshed dished out by the vicious cartel. Hollywood always makes sure to leave no gray area as to whether the bad guys deserve to die or not. But be warned that this story is more bleak than you’d find in a typical Hollywood film of this genre.
Due to the authentic Mexican setting, there’s also a good bit of English subtitles needed, in case you’re put off by such things. Those realities aside, it’s a pretty solid weekday night rental if it’s miserable and raining outside, and you’re ordering a pizza and looking for something to watch. It’s available for streaming now.
– Wait for Rental
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (R)
I liked part one. Now that that’s out of the way.
In this sequel, the bride that survived the original “hide and seek to the death” game is forced to play again, with new family members hunting her. Only this time she’s paired up with her annoying sister (played by Kathryn Newton). The two of them bicker throughout the film like a couple of 12-year-old girls in the backseat fighting over a Barbie, and it’s more annoying than I could possibly describe. They even bicker loudly (constantly) while the devil-worshipping villains are close by, hunting them.
The script is dumb, annoying, and hard to sit through. To try to sell their sisterly angst, every 6th word is an F-bomb. And with a movie overstuffed with dialogue, it’s a B-52 carpet bombing of F-bombs from start to finish. Only once did the lead put her hand over her sister’s mouth to shut her the hell up (see photo). What she really needed was a gag ball.
Each evil family here for the hunt is represented by a husband and wife. The husbands are worthless pussies and can’t even work a TV remote without their wives showing them how to do it. Just like in real life, right guys? The wives have a lot of spirited fight in them and wear the pants while their husbands mostly cower and pout. There’s not one likable character in the mix. Even the lead (Samara Weaving) is insufferable.
Twice during the film, I contemplated walking out of the theater. It’s that bad.
– AVOID!
Project Hail Mary (PG-13)
Ryan Gosling stars as an astronaut sent out into deep space to literally save Earth from extinction. We’ve seen a lot of movies with that theme, but this has a different twist to it. The trailers have already given too much away, but that’s Hollywood.
Andy Weir was the author of the book, “The Martian,” that was then made into a very successful movie starring Matt Damon. Weir also wrote, “Project Hail Mary.” I read both books before seeing the movies, and I thought both the book and the movie version of The Martian were well done. But the movie version of Project Hail Mary skips so many chapters and details that it’s basically just a superficial flyover of the novel. The CliffsNotes version. It does make sense, as a typical 2.5-hour film would calculate out to about 150 pages of script. “Project Hail Mary” is a 482-page novel. Tough to condense that down so hard.
The novel is filled with scientific theories and explanations that go on and on. It gets mighty deep, in chapter after chapter. But for those that march through the slog, it goes a long way to explaining why complicated things are happening. As I watched the movie, I understood the setbacks (many that were left out) that the audience around me was likely shaking their heads at. Maybe they enjoyed what they were watching, maybe not. Hard to tell.
The movie version tries to add sidekick humor that often falls flat. At the 2-hour mark, you may get antsy. I did.
The good news is that although Weir’s novel held up Communist China as the major leader in this space project to save the world, the movie totally shuns that notion, even if that might cost the film big money at the Chinese box office. Give Hollywood credit where it’s due.
I’m going to go against the grain here and say I don’t think Project Hail Mary is a movie that needs to be seen in a theater, much less in IMAX.
– Wait for Rental
Shelter (R)
Jason Statham is back doing Jason Statham things in his latest movie, Shelter. His 14-year-old costar actress (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) is surprisingly good in this. And unlike the 111 other young characters before her, who all play the role of “dumb kid,” never doing what they’re told, to create weak-writing plot tension, she actually follows orders and acts like a normal person in peril would act.
Refreshing.
For maximum enjoyment, I recommend knowing as little about the story ahead of time as possible before walking into the theater. It’s a bit of a slow burn at the beginning, but definitely a theater-grade movie.
I liked Statham’s previous movie, The Beekeeper. But this one has a better story than The Beekeeper. I have some quibbles with it, but going over any of them would give too much of the plot away.
There are very few movies worth going to a theater these days. Which makes this one really stand out.
– See it on the Big Screen
Greenland 2: Migration (PG-13)
I saw the original Greenland movie (starring Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin) in the theater in 2019 and thought it was one of the best end-of-the-world movies ever put together. This part 2 picks up where the original ended with the occupants of the government bunker in Greenland emerging five years after the comet strike only to find the world is still a pretty inhospitable place. On a yearly cycle, the fragments of the comet are still hitting Earth, the Earth’s crust is splitting open with lava flowing, and radiation and terrible storms (understatement) are a constant threat. None of this is realistic from a scientific point of view after such an event, but as an action-adventure movie, it’s OK.
In one scene, they claim that the tectonic plates are shifting into a new formation, which is causing the massive earthquakes that are even threatening the integrity of their nuclear bunker. Tectonic plates move at about the same rate as human fingernails. Mighty slow. Imperceptible.
Years ago, I would have bet that by 2026 we would have these shaky-cam movies behind us. No such luck. Which is strange because it’s the same director who did the first one, without all this shaking going on. The constant, amateur-hour, “drunk cameraman” motion is likely the #1 reason for hordes of people to skip this one completely. If the shaky-cam filming technique bothers you, this movie is not for you. I’m not sure sensitive people would even find it acceptable on their TV for rental.
In a common theme with such disaster movies, here again, there is just enough room for a car to drive out of the city or through an area littered with abandoned vehicles. It’s so nice to know that evacuating people will always think of the future sole survivors, leaving room for them on the roadways as they perish themselves in a world-ending event.
We do get a rash of “Survivor” types of challenges, one after another, that would make most sane folks turn back from the long quest to the unknown. But it’s fun to watch this tight little group march forward toward a safe haven land that may or not be enchanted as promised. It’s also good to see that they dropped the whole insulin-dependence son plot crutch for this one.
The thing that throws cold water on most of these harrowing scenes is that you know none of the main stars are going to get even a scratch from any of it until they get close to the end and either live or die. But it’s still a pretty grim tale, so kudos to that overall theme.
The bottom line is that if you saw the original Greenland movie in 2019, you’ll probably want to see this one, just to see how this end-of-the-world story ends.
– Wait for Rental
End of 2026 Movies.