A concert rehearsal film starring Michael Jackson. Directed by Kenny Ortega. 111 minutes. At major theatres
Appropriate to Halloween week, ghoulish questions abounded going into last night's preview of Michael Jackson's This Is It, which opens worldwide Wednesday.
Would this filmed record of Jackson's rehearsals for a London concert series planned prior to his death last June show the reclusive pop icon morbidly in decline, as out of tune and out of shape as Elvis Presley was in his final days?
Could anything of real value be expected from a show still in the creative phase, and in a digital video format originally intended as private reference material and not for public consumption?
Jackson fans will be delighted to hear the answer is a resounding "no" to the first question and "yes" to the second.
Jackson looks thinner than ever, but his singing is strong and he moves (and moonwalks) with vigour, right from the start of the opening number "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", from Thriller, his record-breaking 1982 album.
This is Michael Jackson unvarnished, the wizard behind the curtain and the man-child in the mirror, and it's fascinating to behold.
He's as tough as Frank Sinatra with his perfectionistic demands, brooking no dissent as he puts dancers and musicians half his age through their gruelling paces.
But he's also as fragile as Judy Garland, as is evident on the moving ballad "Human Nature."
This with pyrotechnics and big rock flourishes you'd expect more from the likes of Pink Floyd or the Rolling Stones.
It also packs an emotional wallop; there's an undeniable sadness seeing this and knowing it's the show he never gave and now never will.
Directed by Kenny Ortega, Jackson's longtime collaborator and creative director who was also in charge of the London concert series, This Is It is scheduled to run in theatres for just two weeks. An extension is widely expected if screenings sell out, as advance sales indicate they will.
The film is culled from more than 100 hours of high-definition rehearsal footage, shot from March of this year up to the hours before Jackson's June 25 death from heart failure at age 50. It was lensed mainly at the The Forum and the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where Jackson had been putting in full days of work for weeks.
He sweated every small detail, as the film shows in scenes both onstage and backstage.
This Is It packs a lot into nearly two hours, covering all of Jackson's career from his early days dancing and singing with the Jackson 5 in the 1960s to his near-recluse status in this decade, when he rarely performed and only occasionally recorded.
Such familiar Jackson hits as "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" are given the full production treatment. Jackson is assisted by 11 dancers (including Canada's Daniel Celebre of Nobleton, Ont.), with choreography by Travis Payne, another longtime collaborator.
This Is It includes a salute to Old Hollywood, through a production number and short black-and-white film celebrating such classics as the noir dramas Gilda and In a Lonely Place and the screwball comedy His Girl Friday. Jackson segues into it by way of "Smooth Criminal," a hit from his 1987 album Bad.
Jackson, Payne and Ortega alsoeagerly revive the Thriller zombie dance number, which by chance was performed for the first time in full costume at Jackson's final rehearsal, the day before his untimely death.
The 28 songs (26 by Jackson) in the movie include a four-tune medley tribute to the Jackson 5, the Motown brothers act (later called The Jacksons) that propelled young Michael to pre-teen fame in the 1960s and 1970s:
"I'll Be There," "I Want You Back," "The Love You Save" and "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)."
This Is It sounds like a title epitaph written after the fact of Jackson's death, but the connection to the singer oddly goes back more than a quarter-century. It was originally the title of a song he co-wrote with Paul Anka in the early 1980s, which was shelved at the time but recently reissued as a "new" song to promote the movie (it's heard over the end credits), with fresh backing vocals from Jackson's brothers.
This Is It was also intended to be the title for the series of 50 career-reviving concerts by Jackson at London's 02 Arena, which had been scheduled to begin July 13 and continue through March 6, 2010.
At a London press conference last March to announce the series, Jackson called the 02 shows "the final curtain call." Whether he was referring to his last-ever shows in London or calling it quits to the road altogether was never made clear.
But this film of Jackson's preparations for the London gigs proves how seriously he took them, and how determined he was to make them memorable.
