"This is It!"

Saw the Michael Jackson film "This is It" yesterday.

What did I think? Mmmmph! Starts out all ham-fisted and clumsy but then suddenly starts working and eventually explodes into total brilliance and you become awestruck at how incredibly talented and inspired and preternaturally wonderful MJ is ... but then it keeps going and going and going until you stop noticing the talent and start noticing how much he looks like Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King from "Nightmare Before Christmas", and you realise your bum is numb and you sooo want to be gone.

I wasn't the only one. After 75 minutes, more than half the audience walked out and after 100 minutes you begin to think you should join them, and after that all you can think is "Why don't you hurry up and DIE already!"

And I found it very disappointing that the incredibly beautiful "save the planet" footage came long after I'd lost interest. It should have been the focus of the entire film because it was THAT, apart from MJ's genius, that made the film so relevant and important, yet the entire message got swamped under ... I don't know, the film-maker's need to show his own brilliance? Wow, wasn't there zillions of hours of that Kenneth Ortega guy in there! WHY? I think if you got rid of most of the footage of him, the film may actually have a chance to WORK!

Yeah, yeah, I know this film was made in a great hurry but, in the final analysis, it wasn't yet ready to be released.

So that's my assessment: never has a film needed a more savage editing. And getting rid of the endless Kenneth Ortega would be a good place to start.

After that, it's just a pity MJ simply ends up looking like ...