First Reviews of Michael Jackson’s This Is It
Wacko Jacko is back with This Is It – a documentary stitched together from footage of his rehearsals. This posthumous tribute is a curiosity feature if nothing else:
The big fear, though, was that fulsome homages to the man and his talent would smother This Is It in a coating of treacle; thankfully, Ortega limits it to the occasional sobbing outburst from the dancers or choreographers. We are instead offered genuinely interesting tidbits of Jackson’s stagecraft, in the shape of intense discussion of cues, cherry-pickers and trapdoors – presumably to demonstrate how hands-on he was.
Whatever the case, the on-screen results are weird and watchable, by turns frustrating and entertaining, and predictably a little morbid.
Manolha Dargis in The New York Times
Painfully thin and seemingly fragile, like a skeletal marionette, he speaks in strange rambling sentences – about love (“L-o-v-e,” he repeatedly spells) and environmentalism – which could be the sacred voice of his inner child or the results of heavy-duty doses of propofol. Either way, it’s a strange and ultimately underwhelming way to say goodbye to a troubled, talented performer.
