Michael Jackson’s This Is It

If Michael Jackson were still alive, the rib-skinny This Is It would have been rightly judged as an unreleasable pastiche of lip-syncing rehearsal footage and fawning interviews with collaborators and acolytes. But he isn’t alive, so to some people Kenny Ortega’s not-even-a-concert film took on the significance of a historic pop document, as though there were some sort of dearth of Jackson-related media. The film tries to give you an idea of what Jackson’s mammoth This Is It concert would have looked like, and what we glimpse is often impressive, albeit far beyond the capability of the frail man we see walking through his steps. The most offensive element: The King of Pop was planning a Jackson 5 segment in the concert … with four young guys playing his brothers! What, Jermaine and Tito were busy?