BEFORE: I don't really expect much out of tonight's film, because I know about the history (or is that the HIStory...) behind it. Michael Jackson was scheduled to perform at 50 high-profile shows in London in 2009 and 2010, this was around the time when acts like Celine Dion were settling in at Vegas casinos for residencies and such, and then of course Jacko went and died a couple weeks before the shows opened, so I guess everyone got their money back? I'll have to check on that. In the months that followed, the rehearsal footage was cobbled together to give everyone some idea what those shows might have ended up looking like, or I guess somebody had to raise some money somehow to pay everybody back for their efforts in staging the thing in the first place. I guess this demonstrates why everyone should buy insurance, even movies and stage shows need it. And I guess the title ended up having a double meaning, not just "there's a great show, and this is it!" but also "there are no more MJ shows after this one, so this is IT!"
Obviously, Michael Jackson carries over from last night's film, and he'll be here tomorrow also as I wrap up Phase II of the Summer Concert series.
THE PLOT: A compilation of interviews, rehearsals and backstage footage of Michael Jackson as he prepared for his series of sold-out shows in London.
AFTER: They now call it "the greatest concert that never happened" - though it was sometimes hard for me to make sense of what was going on here, so I think it sort of assumes a lot that these concerts would have been "the greatest". I suppose that's what you get when you take a bunch of rehearsal footage - since Michael's clothes keep changing from shot to shot, even within the same song, they must have taken footage of two or three rehearsals and edited it together to simulate a multi-camera event being staged. A lot of this footage was initially never meant to be seen by the public, it was only for Jackson's library and personal use, but then of course once people knew that the concert would never take place, those films became very valuable, and of great interest to his fans.
Jackson doesn't sing every line during the rehearsals, it's explained several times that he was trying to conserve his voice, because I guess if he sang every line at full volume during the rehearsals, he wouldn't have the strength a few weeks later? I don't know, this explanation sounds a little fishy to me, but I'm often too cynical for my own good. I suppose if his vocal performance sounded perfect here, then I'd suspect that he was lip-synching, because who sounds good during rehearsals? But that's why you have rehearsals, to get yourself gradually up to performance level.
Unfortunately the King of Pop comes off like a fragile flower here, at one point during a song he complains that the music playback is too loud, and it's like a "fist in his ear". Umm, OK, but how's he going to feel when the music plays full volume during the show AND there are 23,000 fans screaming in the audience? Given this, it's really tough to say for sure how those concerts would have gone, if the rehearsals seemed like they were too much for him to handle. He seems physically fine here, he's obviously still got the dance moves in him, though he hadn't done a major concert since 1997. But they're the SAME dance moves, again and again, and I just don't know if they would have still played well in 2009.
Then there are some impressive-looking 3-D movies, and also one where Michael was inserted into some classic movies from the 1950's, but again, it's unclear how these videos were going to be shown, or where. It's one thing to cut them into a film, but where was the screen in the arena, with relation to the stage? And how was that all going to work?
Of course they're not going to talk about the things that interest me the most, namely, did the people who bought tickets get refunds? How much did this whole stage-show cost to produce, and who ended up paying for it? Did anyone have production insurance? Was the decision to turn the rehearsal footage into a film done purely for someone to minimize their financial losses? Did other acts step forward to perform on those dates that Michael was supposed to be at the O2 arena? None of these questions ended up getting answered. Instead we get a too-preachy environmental message and a promise to "heal the world" without any specific tips on how to do so.
It's a great attempt to polish a turd, or perhaps make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but in the end you can only do so much with the materials that you have to work with.
Also starring Kenny Ortega, Jonathan Moffett (also carrying over from "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Orianthi Panagaris, Tommy Organ, Alex Al, Michael Bearden, Mo Pleasure, Bashiri Johnson, Dorian Holley, Judith Hill (last seen in "20 Feet from Stardom"), Darryl Phinnessee, Ken Stacey, Michael Cotten, Travis Payne with archive footage of Humphrey Bogart (last seen in "Dark Victory"), Rita Hayworth (last seen in "Pal Joey"), Edward G. Robinson (last seen in "The Cincinnati Kid"), Gloria Grahame (last seen in "Song of the Thin Man")
RATING: 3 out of 10 back-up dancers
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