Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 179
Fresh: 145 | Rotten: 34
While it may not be the definitive concert film (or the insightful backstage look) some will hope for, Michael Jackson's This Is It packs more than enough entertainment value to live up to its ambitious title.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 5
While it may not be the definitive concert film (or the insightful backstage look) some will hope for, Michael Jackson's This Is It packs more than enough entertainment value to live up to its ambitious title.
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"Michael Jackson's This Is It" will offer Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place beginning this summer in London's O2 Arena. Chronicling the months from March through June, 2009, the film is produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more than one hundred hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing a
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All Critics (180) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (151) | Rotten (34) | DVD (9)
The Michael Jackson we see here is not a self-styled Messiah or a tabloid oddity. He is, instead, what he always was underneath it all: a talented musician, a brilliant dancer, and one of the most gifted entertainers of his time.
Top CriticIt's purpose isn't to reinvent Jackson, but to recapture some of the creative magic that made the kid from Indiana a worldwide musical ambassador.
It's an expertly packaged -- brilliantly packaged, considering how quickly the job was done -- phantasmagoria that emphasizes, quite convincingly, the energy that Michael could still draw from whatever was fueling his wraith-thin body.
Michael Jackson's perfectionism fails him in This Is It, and we're all the better for it.
Perhaps the best way to approach it -- at least for those who are not total Jackson fans -- is to view it as an often-fascinating document on how the sausage (or magic, if you will) is made for a mega-concert tour.
In This Is It, Michael Jackson is once again The Thriller, the biggest pop star the world has ever known.
Don't watch this documentary film expecting to find insight into Jackson's troubled psyche, or to spot premonitions of his impending death, watch instead for glimpses of his peerless talent.
Sometimes he loses his voice and sometimes he even loses his temper. The film never shows us whether or not Michael Jackson had lost his mind. But it does show us that he never lost his talent.
It's a goddamn American tragedy. Let the poor sick bastard rest in peace.
Because the show was designed to be a nostalgic wrap-up of the highlights of [Jackson's] career, This Is It works very appropriately as a eulogy.
The standard DVD and blu-ray versions are most impressive, especially the blu-ray, packed as it is with more than an hour and a half of extras.
If you've got the slightest interest in Jackson's music, then this is the movie for you. If you want to learn the truth about the icon, then you're looking at the wrong film.
The total DVD package is a brilliantly conceived and assembled work that shows the love (L O V E) the filmmakers have for their muse, Michael.
...a pretty amazing labor of love...a DVD that anyone interesting in music, live shows and the creative process should see.
This Is It works, on a very simple level, because you get to see Jackson -- stripped free from his garish, almost willfully bizarre public persona -- doing what he truly loves, and almost inarguably was born to do.
Not a ghoulish take-the-money-and-run rip-off, but a surprisingly sweet, sensitive, tenderhearted swan song you will never forget that will have you shedding a tear while tapping your feet.
'This is It' is tied together by an aesthetic that can only be called Synthetic Intimacy.
This Is It gives us enough to see that this concert series was going to be the kind of show you tell your grandkids about, full of incredible dancing and innovative staging and energetic wowness. The missing elements serve to feature the star who has fal
As breathtaking as it is heartbreaking.
A piecemeal attempt at putting a bow on Michael Jackson's overblown and bankrupt career, this clinical behind-the-scenes collage of the rehearsal process for MJ's doomed London performance schedule is more propaganda than documentary.
As much as This Is It recalls Jackson's genius, it perpetuates the exploitation that shaped his life.
Now, when I see and hear the fan worship, I don't silently cringe. Never again. I nod my head in affirmation.
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Latest News on Michael Jackson's This Is It
November 16, 2011:
Michael Jackson's Estate Is Shopping a BiopicIvan Reitman is part of the early negotiations.
January 25, 2010:
RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: This Is It and Whip ItThis week on DVD and Blu-Ray, we've got a lot of new releases - some of them more worthy of mention...
December 1, 2009:
Michael Jackson Had Plans to Make 3D Feature Version of ThrillerThe director of This Is It!, Kenny Ortega, has stated that Michael Jackson had wanted to make a...
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Foreign Titles
- Michael Jackson: Esto es todo (ES)
