You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll dance in your seat throughout This Is It…as long as you’re a Michael Jackson fan. If you’re like me – neither a lover nor hater of MJ– then you’ll be bored stiff within the hour.  That’s because This is It is little more than what you’d see in the special features of a concert DVD; there’s MJ rehearsing, then there’s MJ rehearses a little bit more, and for the final climactic act, MJ rehearses one last time before the credits roll. Fan will be transfixed throughout,  but if you’re looking for an insightful documentary on Jackson and his final concert, this isn’t it.

While there’s no questioning that Jackson was one of the greatest performers of our time, or that ‘This Is It’ would have been a truly spectacular concert to behold,  Kenny Ortega’s film doesn’t quite capture the  grandeur of either.  It claims to be a documentary on discovering “the man you never knew”, yet the only thing I learnt about Jackson was that he had freakishly large hands. As for constructing his final concert, there’s seldom an interview with anyone involved in the gigantic production, aside from the opening ten minutes where Jackson’s support dancers tear-up while remembering the late performer. It’s a gushy way to start things off, but thankfully the only time the film gets overly sentimental.

Of what little behind the scenes footage there is, we see how Jackson was green-screened into an old Rita Hayworth film for the ‘Smooth Criminal’ video and a similar look at the making of the videos for ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ and ‘Thriller’. The rest of the film’s 112 minute runtime is spent watching Jackson rehearse his songs with the backing band, stopping and starting until they get the sound and timing of each note just right. It’s all captured using two hand-held HD cameras and occasionally a nauseating low-resolution camera,  which unfortunately seems to be the only camera that captured a near-full dress rehearsal.

Yet even this impartial observer can admire the perfectionism and showmanship Jackson exemplifies on stage. He clearly cared about his music and his fans, which isn’t all that common in the world of pop music. It’s a shame then that all we see here is rehearsal footage, as Jackson intentionally doesn’t perform at his best; he shies away from hitting the big notes to preserve his voice and doesn’t do all his signature moves. Not even the moon walk!

But that shouldn’t stop fans from flocking to the cinema to see what is the last time Jackson performed a number of his most beloved songs. This is undoubtedly a film for the fans – a chance to say their final farewell to the King of Pop — and I can’t imagine they’ll be disappointed. That much was clear when the girl seated behind me burst out into tears during Jackson’s rehearsal of ‘Thriller’. While I personally couldn’t echo her sentiment, she certainly was not alone.

Verdict:

Let’s be honest; This Is It only exists to cover the costs of the concert that never happened, and to cash in on the increased popularity of the singer after his death. Although it’s essentially a glorified special feature for a concert DVD, it’s a fitting eulogy for fans (and fans alone) that is thankfully not overwrought with sentimentality.

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