Michael Jackson's This Is It

"Michael Jackson's This Is It" is a documentary film made from rehearsal footage from what would have been Michael Jackson's final concert tour. The film is directed by Kenny Ortega (choreographer for "Dirty Dancing," director/choreographer for the "High School Musical" movies, and he helped to create Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" and "HIStory" tours.) Of course the film stars the late Michael Jackson as well as several dancers and members of the crew.

Mid-July 2009 was supposed to be the start of Michael Jackson's final tour, "This Is It." There would be 50 shows at the O2 Arena in London, England, lasting until March 2010. This all was cancelled upon Michael Jackson's untimely death in June. Although the concert tour never came to be, there was an awful lot of rehearsal footage which became the basis for the film. There was over 100 hours of rehearsal footage available. In August Sony bought the rights to that footage for $60 million in order to make a movie. After much editing, what we have is slightly under two hours of rehearsal footage with Michael Jackson and his dancers as well as interviews and other behind-the scenes clips.

The movie is pretty well put together. The main attraction of the movie is all of the song rehearsals. It was good to see all the effort that went into these rehearsals. Even at 50, Michael Jackson still had at great voice and was a great dancer. He seems very natural even when next to dancers nearly half his age. The energy he puts into performances is amazing (and this was just rehearsals...the real thing would have been even better.) It is completely evident that Michael Jackson loved his work with every fiber of of his being. His rehearsals of classics like "Billie Jean," "Man in the Mirror," "Smooth Criminal," "They Don't Really Care About Us," "Thiller," "Black or White," etc simply prove this passion. The movie also goes a little into the behind-the-scenes of the rehearsals. They show discussions between Michael Jackson and Kenny Ortega or other crew members about what needed to be changed for certain parts of the show. People also talk about what it was liked to be picked as a dancer for the tour, some auditions are shown, and Michael Jackson is shown telling everyone about the "This Is It" tour. Overall a very good - although all-too brief - look at what goes into making a Michael Jackson tour, complete with behind-the-scenes footage, beyond just the actual song performances.

Besides the songs and dances themselves, there is also a good use of special effects via green screen in the movie. All of this is done on a huge screen behind Michael Jackson and the other dancers. This included digitally-added Michael Jackson into a Humphrey Bogart movie before performing "Smooth Criminal," a small group of dancers dressed as soldiers turned into thousands via green screen for "They Don't Really Care About Us," and a new video that was made to be shown during the performance of "Thriller." This just adds to the highly elaborate staging and effects the movie offered, that the tour would have.

The main issue that I had with the movie was that a few times between scenes there would be a black screen for a longer period of time than most movies. Sometimes there would be people talking before the next scene was visible on the screen. This made some of the edits seem a little choppy. Also, the film would have been great to see in 3-D; at least the scenes that were going to be shown in 3-D during the tour. The ending seemed like it came a bit abruptly, although given the type of movie that's not a huge problem. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," the first song performed in the movie seemed to be the weakest performed song, which isn't to say it's not good, just several other songs I felt were performed better.

"Michael Jackson's This Is It" is completely successful in what it set out to do - give the world a glimpse of what the "This Is It" concert tour would have had been like. If this movie is any indication, the tour would have been amazing. Michael Jackson was so invested in his work, and it shows in the rehearsals. All the dancing ability, vocal ability and stage presence in general is here. The special effects also enhance the enjoyment of the elaborate stage production. In the end there is nothing majorly wrong with the film at all. It's a great piece of entertainment and the movie is a nice memorial to "The King of Pop," an entertainment legend that will never be forgotten. 3 1/2 out of 4 stars...it's only in theaters for 2 weeks...so see it soon...

-Joseph Sbrilli