Michael (2026) reviews

The Fuzzy Mushroom take on Michael

By Fuzzy Mushroom · Updated 10 November 2026 · The Pros 44 · The Punters 79 · Spore Score 60 · How we write our takes

Why The Punters rate it far higher than The Pros

Michael is one of the biggest Pros vs Punters arguments of the year. The Punters give it 79. The Pros give it 44. That is a 35-point gap, and the Spore Score of 60 carries a fuzzy tag. The split is simple to explain. Audiences came to celebrate Michael Jackson's music and left dancing. Critics came looking for a portrait of the man and found what many of them called a greatest hits album: thrilling to listen to, careful about what it leaves out.

What it is

Antoine Fuqua, the director of Training Day, works from a script by John Logan, the writer of Gladiator and Skyfall. The film follows Jackson from the Jackson 5's rehearsals in Gary, Indiana in the 1960s, through Motown, Off the Wall and Thriller, to the Bad World Tour in the late 1980s. Jaafar Jackson, Michael's nephew, plays him as an adult in his film debut, with Juliano Valdi as the young Michael. Colman Domingo plays his father, Joseph, Nia Long his mother, Katherine, and Miles Teller his lawyer, John Branca.

What it does well

Jaafar Jackson is extraordinary. He has the voice, the movement and the shyness, and the performances, above all the recreation of the Motown 25 television special where Michael first moonwalked, are electric. Fuqua stages the music like a concert film, and in a good cinema the sound is enormous. Domingo makes Joseph a frightening, controlling presence, and the early scenes of a boy being drilled into a star by his father are the most affecting in the film.

Where The Pros have a point

This is a respectful, carefully managed portrait, and it shows. Michael's insecurities, his vitiligo and his falling-out with his father are covered, but the film rarely gets under his skin or asks hard questions. His brothers barely register as people. And it stops in the late 1980s, before the allegations that would dominate his later life. During production, a clause in a past legal settlement meant references to the 1993 allegations had to be removed, which led to a rewritten third act and reshoots in 2025. Whatever you think of that, it leaves the film feeling incomplete as biography.

Who it is for

Jackson fans, first and foremost, and anyone who wants a big, loud night of music at the cinema. If you want a serious, rounded biography of a complicated life, this is not it.

Context

Michael premiered in Berlin on 10 April 2026 and opened in the UK on 22 April through Universal. It went on to gross more than a billion dollars worldwide, making it the highest-grossing biographical film ever made and the first to pass that mark. A sequel is in development.

The Fuzzy Mushroom verdict

Good bet, with a Spore Score of 60. As a concert, it is a triumph. As a biography, it is a careful, partial portrait. Go for the music and Jaafar Jackson's remarkable performance, and you will see why The Punters love it. Just know what you are not getting.