Coming clean from the beginning as being a Michael Jackson fan even during the weird years.  Growing up a child of the 80’s and near where he came from I always just loved his music.  So cynics stop reading now.

Who should see this movie:  other 80’s kids like me, music lovers of all genres, Michael Jackson fans (of course).

Who should not see this movie:  see above reference to cynics.

Ok, now for the real review.

This was a good show.  I hesitate to call it a movie, there was not the typical beginning, middle, end thing here.  It was a series of rehearsals of different aspects of his tour that never happened.  But that doesn’t do it justice.  Hard to explain, but even though it was rehearsals that we saw, we still got one heck of a show.  We got the dance moves, the guitar riffs, the pyrotechnics.

For those that say MJ was sickly, go watch this show.  He keeps up with dancers half his age not even breaking a sweat.  The dance moves were a great combination of new stuff (this cool sideways moonwalk-like thing) and good ole Beat It mock fights.  He was just as rehearsed and precise as the dance troupe that backed him up.

He did a tribute to The Jackson 5 that was all right.  I am not ashamed to say that when he started to sing “I’ll Be There” I got a little teary eyed.  That song just always seems to pure Jackson 5.  I’m still not quite over Mariah Carey singing it.

Watching him lead a group of dancers to Thriller was pretty darn cool too.

Michael Jackson was a show man.  He knew what made a good show and he was kind about saying what he wanted and what he wanted changed.  He made sure that everyone was the best they could be.

The one thing that sticks with me, during a guitar riff, the blonde Aussie girl that kicked ass on Beat It (sorry Eddie Van Halen, she might be edging into your spot soon) was going off on a really good solo.  MJ told her to go for it, it was her time to shine and they were all right there with her when she was shining.

Too bad all we’ll ever see of this concert is this show.  It looked to be a great performance, more like a series of live music videos than a concert.