Michael Jackson's This Is It

By Angel Constantino
Photo courtesy of Sony Music Philippines

Published: Spot.ph, October 2009
Section: Movie Reviews

This Is It is a film about what could have been.

From March through June 2009, Michael Jackson and his crew were busy preparing for his final comeback—a series of sold-out concerts that would have been staged in London’s O2 Arena—if it weren’t for the 50-year-old performer’s death on June 25.

The movie gives audiences a glimpse of what went on during those rehearsals. It begins with Michael Jackson’s dancers talking about their experience of working with the King of Pop. Some of them are teary-eyed and barely able to speak, as performing with MJ has been their lifelong dream. A few minutes into the film, as snippets of the auditions are shown and the lucky chosen ones perform “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” with MJ, you begin to get immersed into their world.

This Is It is not an ordinary documentary. While there are a few interviews with different people who worked on the concert with MJ, this film is more about his music. Film director Kenny Ortega, who was also MJ’s creative partner and the director of the stage show, did an inspiring job of selecting the most poignant moments from over a hundred hours of rehearsal footage. The smooth transitions from different periods of rehearsals (with MJ and the dancers in different outfits) allow you to see the progression of the songs, which were arranged in the same order as they would have appeared in the concert.

But unlike the experience of watching an actual concert where everything is smooth and polished, this movie allows you to actually feel like a part of it. You see the mistakes they made, hear the odd instructions MJ would give that somehow make perfect sense (“Let it simmer…” he tells his musical director while rehearsing, “The Way You Make Me Feel”), and finally witness something close to the end product. Even the combination of high definition videos with blurry, low-resolution images gives the film an intimate feel—as if you’re seeing something you weren’t supposed to...

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