THIS IS IT- REVIEW

If you are a Michael Jackson fan, then you’d be hard done to miss this wonderful piece of musical documentary.

If you are not, then Wikipedia him up, get to know him further, and go to theatre and discover the man you never knew. Yes, none of us knew him. Michael might have spent the eon of his adult life scrutinized in the public eye and by the unforgiving media which gave him a torrid time, but ever wanted to know how this reserved, silent looking enigma behaved, talked, walked, smiled behind all the images that the media is? Here is your answer- that is if you are observant enough to notice the small things that are shown in the film, things that define and paint the ‘real’ MJ for you.

First of all, talking on a technical point of view, Kenny Ortega should be given all the credit for making this film. Many predicted this will be just a PR stunt in order to recoup all the lost money when ‘This is It’ did not materialize after MJ’s demise. Instead, this documentary showed MJ and his passion, and also showed how much hard work it involves in making a concert of this magnitude. Everyone who conceived the idea of executing ‘This is It’, especially Michael and Kenny should take the cake for being such wonderful visionaries. By the time you walk out of the theatre, you will think it’s a waste. Not that the movie is a waste, but that the fact that ‘This is It’ was never executed is a waste- Never before has a concert of this magnitude been attempted to, and MJ, even at 50, had all the energy to have made it a stunning spectacle. ‘Smooth Criminal’ was re-shot in a 60s style, ‘Thriller’ was shot with a 3D effect, and also the ‘Earth Song’ had a new brilliant music video accompanying what already was a wonderful song. 10 dancers are transformed into a 1000 using CGI to be used as a background for ‘You Don’t Care About Us’. All these things are of such untried magnitude, we haven’t seen something like this on the stage before, and it is a pity we will not see it now. At least, the most we could do is watch this documentary.

Secondly, this film shows you an assortment of the very best. Check out MJ’s new lead guitarist, she could easily rival the legendary Slash, she was that talented (her name doesn’t stick with me yet), and the fact that she was a young woman on a guitar, and also pretty, makes her and her talent a feast to watch. The dancers are all from the top shelf, they are not only from US, from are spread from all over the world- from Holland to Australia. Only the very best are chosen for this project- from all involved areas, even for dance masters who even come from Russia. And of course you have MJ. If any of you thought he had lost it after not having performed at such an arena for almost a decade, you are definitely wrong. MJ sounds pretty much the same, and amazingly when he is on his attires, the ‘Prince’ looks genuinely like the ‘Prince’, his half-a-century age never showed.

To round it all, there is the somewhat personal side of MJ. Notice him having a lollipop in his mouth while watching dancers rehearse for a Thriller 3D video. Watch him give a wide smile full of satisfaction when Kenny says, ‘Lights out, hold for applause’ after rehearsing a song. I read once that the stage was MJ’s sanctuary, it definitely shows here. Such a perfectionist he is, he even knows accurately about the beats and the tempos of his own song that he can instruct his musical director. He takes enormous responsibility on the stage, he walks up and says ‘wait for my cue’; though he would be at the middle of the stage singing, already having his hands full, he still raises the cue for a new beat, or for the entrance of dancers, all the miniscule things were channeled through him. In an era where pop starts are pampered and look for a rest as soon as possible, MJ is like a God on stage, he keeps trying, he keeps going. ‘Let’s do it one more time, that is why we have rehearsals’- you hear him say that line thrice in the film, and that line summarizes his dedication to his cause. MJ only gave probably less than half of this effort (he says after singing ‘Can’t Stop Loving You’ that he shouldn’t sing because he should be saving his throat for the concert) yet it already looks a good enough effort in the rehearsals, imagine what he might have gave to the audiences if he had been at the concert. Apart from that, he always uses phrases such as ‘God bless you’ when anyone, anyone at all does a good job during the rehearsals, and every time he wants to change or disagrees with something, he would say ‘do it for love, L.O.V.E’. For some, it may have been cheesy that such lines are uttered during a stressful rehearsal, but be a skeptic if you want to be, but that is who MJ was. Notice him hugging everyone from the crew after a session. Watch him give a meaningful speech to his team when they wrapped up the rehearsals.

‘This is It’ is easily one of the best documentaries on rock music ever made, and the quotient of it was elevated even more by the fact that MJ did not manage to realize the one more dream he had, the one more vision that he had. However, This is It saves it from being a waste- cameraman who captured those magical moments, so that the people would know what actually went on in This is It.

And as the film rightly says- it’s a film for the fans. Cherish it. With love. L.O.V.E.