Michael (2026) Review: Another Glorified Music Video

Michael (2026) captures the energy behind the singer’s greatest hits without any of the emotion that made them special.

The tricky thing about musical biopics, though, is that they are like trying to hit a bullseye in the dark. You’ll get your occasional Better Man, Rocketman, and tick, tick… BOOM!: What makes these projects stand out amongst the rest is their ability and willingness to portray the artist in question from a vulnerable lens. That means being brutally honest about their problematic behavior, and in some cases, making us dislike them as individuals. More often than not, we’re bombarded with mediocrity, such as Bohemian Rhapsody, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. These biopics also tend to touch on a musician’s dark past, but rather than engage with their actions, they brush over them so we can get to the next musical number. So, which category does Michael fall under?

Michael retells Michael Jackson’s early life as the lead singer of his family band, The Jackson 5. As he pursues his artistic drive, while his father, Joseph Jackson (Colman Domingo, of Euphoria), micromanages the band’s operations, Michael slowly begins to break free from his father’s grasp and takes control over his solo career. By becoming his own man, he fuels his creative ambition to become the world’s biggest entertainer.

The elephant in the room must be addressed, because it plays a huge role in how I ultimately feel about the movie. Michael was originally scheduled to hit theaters on April 18, 2025, before being pushed to last fall and then finally to this spring. The reason for the move? Screenwriter John Logan, director Antoine Fuqua, and the Jackson estate, which served as producing partners, agreed to depict the child molestation allegations Michael faced starting in the 90s without realizing they couldn’t legally do that due to a clause in a settlement with one of the singer’s accusers, Jordan Chandler, that prohibited any mention of his name in a project about Jackson’s life.

After several delays and many reshoots, costing roughly $10 to $15 million, the reworked version of Michael is here, and it is paper-thin. We will never get to see the scrapped footage shot for the film’s original cut. I can’t say it would have been good, or that it would have respectfully engaged with the whole controversy. One thing is certain to me: at least that iteration seemed to have been brave enough to do what noteworthy musical biopics have done in the past, challenge our perception of a singer’s morality and place in the culture.

Instead, we’re left with a series of music videos poorly stitched together by shallow narrative beats. It’s not to say there ain’t good material. Early on, Juliano Krue Valdi embodies a young Michael, as we see snippets of the singer’s isolation that might have led to his emotional immaturity as an adult; he is literally depicted as someone experiencing Peter Pan syndrome through his obsession with the original book. In another instance, Jaafar highlights Jackson’s physical insecurities in a sequence in which he decides to undergo surgery to have his nose reduced. However, these moments are either too far between or the movie shows no interest in exploring the thematic implications these issues could have for Michael’s arc and those around him.

The editing is a huge problem here. You’re constantly overstimulated by how frantically everything is cut. Scenes aren’t ever allowed to breathe. I don’t think Michael goes longer than two minutes without hitting you with a recognizable song you can stomp your feet to. Cinematographer Dion Beebe delivers some nicely framed and lit concert set pieces that you can’t even properly make out due to the overreliance on excessive coverage. 

As distracting as I find the editing in Michael, I can’t fully blame editors John Ottman and Harry Yoon, as they followed a very specific formula that has been proven to work repeatedly. That sentiment also applies to the rest of the cast and crew. Music biopics are like comfort food: People don’t seek them out for intellectual stimulation. They watch them to be reminded why they liked the artist in the first place. It’s another way to feed audiences nostalgia, and Michael might be the biggest offender of this since Bohemian Rhapsody. Jaafar and Domingo do impressions rather than personifying these larger-than-life personas, which is why their performances are barely worth discussing, like most other aspects of this movie.

Yes, it is cool to see songs such as “Beat It” or “Thriller” be recreated for the big screen, but without any nuanced character work, it’s just that: a recreation. Michael continues the long tradition of musical biopics that play like a visual Wikipedia summary of an artist’s life. Sure, you could spend an evening at the cinema listening to some of Jackson’s greatest hits, but you could easily do that at home by watching the original, much better-executed videos he made throughout his career.

Michael will be released globally in theaters on April 24, 2026, with previews starting on April 22.