Moonwalker

Everyone today marks the 4th year anniversary of the passing of one of the greatest entertainers the world had ever known: The King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. This man had made such great songs and his dancing was beyond belief. You would think whenever you saw him doing his robotics that he had strings on, but he didn't. Since I wasn't around during the 80s, I knew that everyone back then really liked Michael Jackson. However, in the 90s, he started to become the subject of ridicule and humor, since some stuff happened that caused people to joke about him. I won't lie; I was one of them that did joke about him. Now that he is gone, which is sad, I have listened to much more of his songs, and a lot of them are on my iPod.

To celebrate the memory of MJ, I thought that I would review his cinematic opus, which came out at the height of his career, Moonwalker, released in 1988. Looking at this film, I would have to say that it is really weird. What I mean is it first starts off with Michael Jackson performing "Man in the Mirror" on stage, with a clip montage of children in Africa, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, John Lennon, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and other historical figures that look like they are buying his call for World Peace. Thank goodness MJ was ahead of his time when it came to World Peace. After that, another montage starts that shows the history of MJ's songs, starting from Music and Me (when he was with his brothers, and they were called the Jackson 5) all the way to Dirty Diana. Then is a bunch of kids parodying his song, Bad. Come on kids, Weird Al Yankovic already did that with Fat, and that was hilarious. How many more parodies do we need of this awesome song? Brandon Quintin Adams is playing the kid version of MJ, Jermaine La Jaune Jackson, Jr. (Michael's nephew), a young Nikki Cox, Maurissa Tancharoen, future R&B star Bilal Oliver, are also in here, and the singing group called The Boys (no, I am not making that up) are the background dancers.

Next is the "Speed Demon" segment. After going through a puff of smoke, the kids become adults, and there is a tour going on with some Claymation figures. They all chase MJ when they notice him (including the Noid) to get his autograph, and MJ walks on the set of a Western being filmed (this part was directed by Spielberg) and gunslingers are out for him as well. Desperate to escape all of these people, MJ hides inside of a costume trailer and dresses up like Bugs Bunny if he was a biker, named Spike (and no, I'm not making that up either). I don't understand why MJ gives away that it's really him in disguise. Wasn't the whole point of him disguising as Spike was to get away from them? Now a car chase happens with the Speed Demon song playing in the background. To get away from his fans, MJ morphs into Sylvester Stallone as a construction worker, Tina Turner, and even Paul Reubens' television character from the 80s, Pee-Wee Herman. After he loses them, he takes off the costume, only to see that it has come to life, and they have a dance off until a cop comes in and gives him a ticket for being in a "No Dancing Zone." Before MJ rides off on his motorcycle, the head of Spike appears to say goodbye. Don't ask why, I don't know what they were smoking either.

With the Leave Me Alone music video, MJ is on a roller coaster ride telling the media to leave him alone since he went through a lot of publicity back then. However, MJ made it so difficult to leave him alone with all of this publicity, newspaper ads, jokes, and everything that it was impossible. His personal life, which the media really targeted, was compared to that roller coaster ride, and even MJ's pet chimp, Bubbles, was in this video. How odd is that?

Alright, now comes the famous segment of the film. It first starts off with three children, Katie (Kellie Parker), John Lennon's only son, Sean, and Zeke (Brandon Adams) on top of a rooftop waiting for MJ. Once MJ comes out of his house, there are people trying to kill him. Cut to a flashback where it shows MJ in a field playing soccer with the three kids, until their dog, Skipper runs into the woods. MJ and Katie follow him, where they find an underground home of Mr. Big, played by the king of the F word, Joe Pesci. His diabolical plan is to get all the children in the world injected with heroin, and is also obsessed with spiders. When Katie screams when a spider comes close to her, MJ and Katie escape after being noticed. Cut to present day, MJ is running from Mr. Big and his minions until he is cornered. A shooting star causes a Transformers knock-off with MJ turning into a car and escaping the gang. He arrives at a night-club where the kids were told to meet. He changes into his normal self, enters in the club that was once empty but now isn't, and the greatest MJ song in existence is started, Smooth Criminal. You might hate me for saying this, but I prefer this over Thriller. Don't get me wrong, Thriller is a masterpiece, but Smooth Criminal perfected everything that made Thriller groundbreaking for its time. While we are enjoying this segment, the plot comes back and kills the mood, with Mr. Big capturing Katie and MJ going to save her. Mr. Big beats Katie; MJ is whooped by his men, until a secret unknown power causes MJ to transform into Poptimus Prime (Nostalgia Critic), or MechaJackson (AVGN), and goes G.I. Joe (Nostalgia Critic) on the men. Seriously, how much do you want to bet that this made people think that MJ was an alien with all of these powers he got in this movie? Once he turns into a spaceship, Mr. Big fires his Marvin the Martian ray gun at MJ, taking him out with one shot. Seriously, was Mr. Big working with Marvin the Martian if he had that gun? Now Mr. Big is ready to kill the children, until MJ comes back, takes him down, and flies away without ever explaining why.

The final segment shows the children missing MJ, even though he was only gone for a minute or so, and he returns, maybe because the director thought MJ leaving without an explanation would be pretty weird. He takes the kids backstage for a surprise until his agents come in and say that MJ needs to go on stage. And what does he perform? The Beatles song, Come Together of course! The last we see of the three kids is them reuniting with Skipper.

How strange of a film is this? It seems more of an ego trip with a compilation of music videos than it does a feature length film. The only part of this that actually feels like an actual film is the Smooth Criminal bit. Actually, scratch that. If you want to watch this film, only watch the Smooth Criminal music video. That was the only part of this film that is worth watching. However, if you want to watch Moonwalker to reminisce on the King of Pop himself, do so. It seems appropriate since today does mark that it has been 4 years since his passing.

Well, thanks for joining me on this review. Stay tuned for Friday when I do my defensive review on my conclusion to Indiana Jones Month, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.