{"id":403865,"date":"2026-04-21T19:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403865\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T19:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:06:12","slug":"michael-debuts-with-27-rotten-tomato-rating-1st-reviews-call-jaafar-jackson-film-frustrating-and-really-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403865\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael debuts with 27% Rotten Tomato rating; 1st reviews call Jaafar Jackson film \u2018frustrating\u2019 and \u2018really bad\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first reviews for Antoine Fuqua\u2019s Michael Jackson<\/a> biopic starring the pop star\u2019s nephew Jaafar Jackson are here. If the low debut rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the reviews from critics are any indication, this King of Pop biopic does not impress. In fact, some reviews even called it \u2018frustrating\u2019 and \u2018disappointing\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"JaafarJaafar Jackson as his uncle Michael Jackson in Michael.Michael debuts with 27% Rotten Tomatoes rating<\/p>\n

Michael <\/a>debuted on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes with a 27% rating, which has gone up to only 31% at the time of writing. Based on 61 reviews, most have given low ratings to the film, even as they praised Jaafar\u2019s performance as his uncle. Criticism ranged from how the film was handled to its ending, hinting at a sequel, even though it doesn\u2019t fully explore Michael\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Critics call Michael \u2018frustrating\u2019<\/p>\n

The Wrap wrote that Michael is a \u2018frustrating biopic that makes you want to scream\u2019. A portion of their review reads: \u201cWhether it\u2019s by design or legal necessity, \u201cMichael\u201d picks as few battles as possible and backs off almost every time. It\u2019s a film about how great Michael Jackson was and how great you are if you\u2019re still a fan. It can\u2019t be taken seriously, no matter how earnest it looks and sounds. because it\u2019s not really a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

IGN wrote that Michael is \u2018really, really bad\u2019. The review reads: \u201cMichael, as it exists in its current, largely incomplete form, is a frictionless, flat, paper-thin story that\u2019s so concerned with fidelity to bullet points and recognizable highlights that it robs its characters of soul \u2014 not to mention the actors playing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

BBC rated it 1 stars out of 5, writing, \u201cA chronological plod through Jackson’s time in the Jackson 5, and his subsequent solo success, the film’s narrative stops in the mid-1980s, before he was accused of child abuse, and it removes everything from the story that might be deemed contentious. It removes everything that might be deemed dramatic, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaafar Jackson\u2019s performance praised<\/p>\n

Not everybody seemed to think Michael was as bad. Praising the film and Jaafar<\/a>\u2019s performance, Variety wrote: \u201cJaafar, the 29-year-old son of Jermaine Jackson, is Michael Jackson\u2019s nephew, and he has never acted in a movie before. But does he ever nail the look, the voice, the electrostatic moves \u2014 and, more than that, the mixture of delicacy and steel that made Michael who he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

ScreenRant also called the biopic \u2018masterful\u2019, writing, \u201cThe finished product has more than justified the cost. From the casting to the costumes to the full-fledged concert performances, Michael lives up to the legendary status of its namesake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael is releasing in theatres on April 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first reviews for Antoine Fuqua\u2019s Michael Jackson biopic starring the pop star\u2019s nephew Jaafar Jackson are here.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,77849,191029,191028,191027,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-403865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-jaafar-jackson","12":"tag-jaafar-jackson-michael","13":"tag-michael-jackson-biopic-review","14":"tag-michael-movie-review","15":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}