Thriller of a movie

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It’s frustrating to watch This Is It and wonder what could have been had Jackson not died just days before his comeback tour. (SONY)

Michael Jackson's final shows would have been a thriller.

This Is It is essentially 'What Would Have Been,' a 110-minute documentary strung together from more than 100-hours of footage shot during rehearsals for his planned 50-concert stand set to start at London's O2 Arena weeks after his sudden death on June 25.

What fans would have seen was an over-the-top concert spectacle of sight and sound worthy of the man known as the King of Pop. It's frustrating to watch the film and think of what could have been.

Despite his rail-thin frame and contorted facial features the result of numerous plastic surgery disasters, there's nothing to indicate any health or drug issues let alone his impending demise. He can still hold his own dancing with a crew half his age, and his voice sounds perfect, although he admits to holding back a couple of times to save it.

The 50-year-old even does his own simple stunts, appearing as a gangster in a green screen segment with Humphrey Bogart for Smooth Criminal.

While you do not get a sense of his life outside of rehearsals, you do get a feel for Jackson the performer, musician and perfectionist. He is involved in every aspect of the production with director Kenny Ortega, from choosing the dancers to how the musical arrangements sound to how the backing videos are shot. Lighting and video cues? No, the band and dancers will act on his cues. He is usually very serious, but is shown in a couple of lighter moments sharing a laugh with his musical director Michael Bearden, asking to be taken higher on a cherry picker and having fun chasing around a female dancer during The Way You Make Me Feel.

This Is It is strictly about the show, with rehearsal footage, testimonies from the band and dancers and the making of the backing video footage to be used during several numbers. There are no insights into his life, no shots of him at home and no indication of his drug dependency.

Much of the video appears to come from three main days, based on Jackson's outfits. One of them is early on when the band and dancers join the frontman on a sparse stage. Another features the set more fully realized with completed choreography while an additional day features a few other bells and whistles, such as the cherry picker, completed background videos and a functioning hydraulic ramp.

A few songs, most notably Smooth Criminal, Thriller and I Just Can't Stop Loving You, are nearly finished and look close to what fans at the concert would have seen. He is still working out his dance moves during some songs, while other sequences, including Beat It, are just shells, but only need some costumes and backgrounds to fill them out.

What we don't see is how Jackson and his dancers would have looked on stage. He has always been known for his flashy duds and the wardrobe designers interviewed briefly hint at one-of-a-kind outfits being created for the show, including a jacket for Billie Jean with individual lights, but nothing is revealed.

Perhaps the outfits weren't completed before this death, much like the show which surely would have been the greatest musical comeback of all time. The fly on the wall aspect of This Is It is revealing, but it leaves a bittersweet aftertaste knowing it will never be.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Other Voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of This is It.

There's an incredible amount to enjoy here, and the star's fans will be in rapture. Though Jackson looks painfully thin at times, his vocal prowess and dancing ability seem to have scarcely ebbed at all in the decade he spent offstage.

-- Andrew Barker, Variety

If This Is It doesn't miraculously restore the middle-aged Jackson to his past glory, it at least offers glimpses of his bygone greatness, and poignant suggestions of what might have been.

-- Elysa Gardner, USA Today

An extraordinary documentary, nothing at all like what I was expecting to see. He is not a sick and drugged man forcing himself through grueling rehearsals, but a spirit embodied by music. Michael Jackson was something else.

-- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Any evidence of eccentricity, scandal or anything else that marked our perception of Jackson the last few years is missing. In its place is a performer in full command of his gifts.

-- Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

A strange and ultimately underwhelming way to say goodbye to a troubled, talented performer.

-- Kevin Maher, Times of London

If you're looking for a reminder that Jackson was a unique and irreplaceable artist when he was on stage, then this is it.

-- Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press

-- Compiled by Canwest News Service

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 29, 2009 D3