Michael

Michael arrives as one of the more critically divisive biopics of the year: critics were broadly negative, while audiences responded enthusiastically, producing an unusually wide gap between the two. Reviewers consistently praise Jaafar Jackson's performance as an uncannily fluid embodiment of his uncle on stage, but just as consistently describe the film around it as a greatest-hits compilation that skates past the deeper context a biopic of this scale would need. The most substantial and recurring criticism is structural rather than stylistic: a legal settlement required the film to remove any depiction of the child sexual abuse allegations against Jackson, and critics widely read the resulting film as sanitized as a result. Audiences, largely unconcerned with that omission, have embraced the film as an immersive celebration of Jackson's music and performance.