Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon

Two and a half hours of life-spanning superficial gushing. There is almost no music in the film. Michael Jackson was a great musician and dancer, and the production clearly only had the rights to the Motown Jackson 5 music. There is no subsequent music whatsoever, no performance footage, and no interesting archival footage at all. There must be so much incredible footage of Michael Jackson out there that could be shaped into an exquisite documentary. This is not it. It is more about his life than his music perhaps, but there is no insight into the complexities of this very unique life. Despite the impressive array of interviewees, none of whom are named, which is just annoying and confusing, so you never know who is talking, there is very little insight. How many times can you hear, "Michael is the greatest entertainer who has ever lived"?

A bit more detail is entered into concerning the child molestation trials, but again, especially considering the more recent revelations, it is ultimately confounding. People say, "Michael is such a loving person, he would never do something like this," rather than presenting the evidence of what actually did or did not happen.

This is very poor filmmaking. It basically consists of people saying uninteresting things that we have all heard before, interspersed with many still photographs shot in irritatingly novel ways, to make up for the lack of actual moving footage.