| Lionsgate | Release Date: April 24, 2026 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
10
Mixed:
24
Negative:
17
|
Critic Reviews
The Film VerdictApr 21, 2026
Movies about artists, ideally, celebrate the art while also providing a glimpse into the blood, sweat, and tears behind its creation, but any exciting moments here can be found in their original, natural state on YouTube. Michael has no ambitions beyond being its own commemorative souvenir booklet.
Read full review
If you have an audience that doesn’t mind a story that includes lies, aversions, and omissions so long as it doesn’t get in the way of thinking too much about the songs they love and uncomfortable truths about the artist who created them, you don’t even have to put that much effort into what you’re making up.
Read full review
Apr 23, 2026
Here, what we are left with is a string of musical set pieces, like a greatest hits album, performed ably by the stars — in his debut role, Jaafar Jackson dances like he is possessed by his uncle’s talent — but strung together in repetitive false-note ways that are insulting both to audience and subject.
Read full review
Apr 21, 2026
Michael, or Bohemian Jacksody, is a film of listlessness and inhumanity that can’t help but suck the energy out of the room. No matter where you come down on Jackson as a person, this film is entirely the opposite of what he was, both as an iconic performer and a controversial tabloid figure. Who would have thought that such a carefully controlled, estate-permitted biopic might actually do more damage to an artist’s legacy by making him so uninteresting?
Read full review
Apr 21, 2026
The Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” had plenty of issues, but the electricity of the re-creation of the Live Aid concert was not one of them. While “Michael” shares the same producer as the Freddie Mercury flick — and a nearly identical performance from Mike Myers as a jokey music exec — it boasts none of the nostalgic thrills.
Read full review
The TimesApr 21, 2026
This is the quintessential Trump-era film, where difficult truths are met with bold-faced mendacity and where the director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and the screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator) have met the challenges of the Jackson story by simply drowning it in quasi-Christian, yes, bullshit.
Read full review
Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
