Given the whole slew of Jackson's involved in this stylish production, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed by the hollowness of the whole thing. Certainly Jaafar Jackson has something of his uncle's charm and childlike vulnerability, but were we not to have known he was a member of the actual family then I'm not sure I'd have been that convinced by his acting characterisation away from the dance floor. In any case, we begin with his ten year old (or is that eight?) younger years; with the domestic brutality at the hands of their domineering father Joe (Colman Domingo) whilst powerless mother Katherine (Nia Long) looked on - but without ever really getting to appreciate the nature of the bond between the siblings (and there's no sign of Janet). Despite being a couple of hours long, by the time we get to the adult, snakes and llamas, phase of his life we seem to be hurrying things along without really learning of his relationship with Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate) or Quincy Jones (Kendrick Simpson) or agent/manager/pillar of support John Branca (Miles Teller). There can be no doubting that this Jackson is in his element in the studio and on the stage; his performances border on the mimicry - but with a freshness to them that reminds us that this lad has a little bit of je ne sais quoi all of his own, something he adds charismatically throughout. The film looks every bit as glitzy and innovative as the original performances were but without any depth. Indeed, it comes across more as a sort of highly-polished fanzine that takes us to "Bad" with the promise of more to come, but without us really knowing a great deal more about him than we could have read on Wikipedia. There is something maniacal about Domingo's effort that convinces, but otherwise perhaps those making this were too close to the subject matter to be truly objective about what made the man tick, and so I left the cinema having remembered a man I saw at Wembley in 1988 fondly, but not especially enlightened.
