Movies: Michael Jackson's This Is * * *
This Is It should have been Michael Jackson's thrilling comeback - but it's a fitting curtain call for one of pop's greatest ever showmen
Friday October 30 2009
Michael Jackson is dead: no two ways about it. If he wasn't, Sky News would have had about a month of dead airspace to fill during the summer, and the singer would be midway through a hugely ambitious comeback tour. In Michael Jackson's This Is It, we get a sense of just how ambitious the planned shows were, and we are given a tantalising glimpse of what might have been one of the most celebrated comebacks in showbiz history.
Hastily assembled by the tour's director and co-choreographer Kenny Ortega, the film is almost entirely comprised of footage from the This Is It tour rehearsals. Which makes it sound a little dull, but oddly enough it's anything but. Because in a necessarily clumsy, seat-of-the-pants way, the film manages to get behind the lurid headlines and rumours to encounter Jackson in the place where he was at his most comfortable -- the stage. On March 5 of this year, Jackson announced that he'd be playing 10 dates at London's Wembley Arena in July: a week later he extended his plans to include a 50-date world tour.
Which was all very well, but the jury was out on whether Jackson would be able to fulfil his handsome promise. He hadn't performed live in 10 years, and had become an increasingly marginal and debt-ridden figure in the music business. Indeed, the main motivation for the tour seemed to be to pay off some of those debts, but once the singer began thinking about it he became enthusiastic about the shows themselves.
Determined not to do things by halves, he hired old and trusted collaborators, such as Ortega, and began months of gruelling rehearsals at a massive sound stage in Culver City. This Is It was to be a sort of greatest hits tour, and as a farewell of sorts, and a vast crew of dancers and musicians were assembled for some truly spectacular routines. During Ortega's film we see cleverly blended rehearsal versions of some of his greatest songs that dip in and out of full-on performance and give some idea of how the King of Pop liked to work.
No posthumous documentary of a recently fallen idol is going to portray them as a monster, but MJ, as he's respectfully referred to by all his collaborators, in the main comes over as mild-mannered and pleasant --but also fiercely determined. We see him hum and gesticulate until his musicians give him exactly what he wants, and pound through typically brilliant but exhausting routines with his dancers. The thrilled excitement of the musicians and dancers in his presence is evidence of the awed esteem in which he was held.
There is some toadying here and there, and the odd sign that Jacko could turn difficult when things weren't going his way. But overall the concert team seemed a pretty happy crew, and were all set for their great adventure. But what of Jackson's own performances?
Many of those who go to see this film will be searching for telltale signs of illness but, apart from the star's trademark thinness, there are none. In fact, he seemed in fine form: his voice whenever he stretches it still sounded great, better than it had in some time in fact, and his dancing was peerless as ever. What's more, he seemed at times to be genuinely enjoying himself, as if he was at last back where he should be.
You do get a tingle in your spine when you hear the opening bars of songs such as The Way You Make Me Feel and Thriller, and so do the band, who often giggle among themselves in excitement as they play.
It looks like it would have been some concert, but of course all these efforts were in vain. At least there's this record, though, of a great show that might have been. And Michael Jackson's This Is It does ultimately succeed in showcasing the unique talents of one of the greatest ever entertainers.
- Paul Whitington
Irish Independent
