Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall

If you believe everyone who does their piece to camera in this fawning adulatory documentary by Spike Lee, then "Off The Wall" is the greatest piece of music ever created in the history of western music. Well, sorry Spike, but, this just in, it isn't, at least not in my opinion. Jackson himself only wrote two and a half (one was a co-write) songs on the record and the rest are a mixture of Rod Temperton originals and errr... off the wall cover versions of songs of very varied quality, I mean Paul McCartney's saccharine "Girlfriend", Carole Bayer Sager's vacuous "It's The Falling In Love" and that god-awful ballad "She's Out Of My Life", by whoever wrote it, seriously, who even plays these tracks today.

The film purports to take us from Jackson's glory Motown days to the release of this supposedly epochal album, but ends up by giving us an extended track-by-track run-through of "Off The Wall" like an episode of "Classic Albums". I did enjoy seeing some unseen footage of various Jackson interviews but these are swamped by a host of uncritical, cringeworthy comments by a variety of participants, many of whom I either didn't know or whose relevance to MJ, I couldn't comprehend. Cobey Bryant, I understand, is a basketball player but not someone whose opinion on music I'd care to hear. For sheer sore-knees sycophancy however, someone called Rosie Perez certainly takes first prize. For some strange reason, David Byrne, ex of the new-wave band Talking Heads, gets to say a few rather distracted words along with archive interviews with the likes of Sammy Davis Jr and Gene Kelly. Yet nowhere are there interviews with the likes of Temperton, Quincy Jones (other than on archive), McCartney or even Diana Ross. It's all very odd and disjointed indeed.

The movie also glosses over the car-crash that was his acting debut "The Wiz" and also hasn't even got the guts to call out the duff note at the end of the afore-mentioned "She's Out Of My Life". It goes without saying too that there's no mention of his difficult relationship with his typically pushy show-biz father Joe, his own eccentric lifestyle, health problems or his future travails in the courtroom.

There's some exciting footage of a Jackson family concert circa 1981 showing him for the great performer he undoubtedly was but it's milked for song after song until its effect is diluted. But when I'm later told that a promo video of "Rock With You" is compelling viewing by the faithful admirers when all it is, is Michael miming in a spangly suit, then I guess I'm in the wrong crowd. And as for that awful rap performed again by someone I don't know over the end titles, the least said the better.

Listen, I'm a fan of Michael Jackson and when he was good he was utterly brilliant, as a singer, writer and performer. But really there's only one outstanding song on the "Off The Wall" album and that's his own "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" with maybe three goodish ones backing it up "Rock With You", Stevie Wonder's "I Can't Help It" and the title track. I would question the premise of the timeline represented by this documentary (the Motown years must be worth a film of their own, surely) and seriously question its complete lack of anything approaching critical analysis both of Michael Jackson and his music.

Oh and by the way, the Jacksons "Triumph" album, made just after this, to which he contributed far more musically, is much superior to "Off The Wall" and any other solo album MJ ever made. If this is the fuss Lee makes over the fair-to-middling "Off The Wall", I fear for the treatment "Thriller" will get, although I might laugh at the same superfans here admitting that it beats its unbeatable predecessor.

Meanwhile this massively biased feature is for devoted Jackson fans only.

Michael Jackson was a rare thing, a child star who actually made it as an adult. He was also a complicated icon of black America, an individual whose sanity was sometimes questioned, and a businessman, very definitely promoting a product. Spike Lee's documentary focuses mainly on the first of these, charting his rise to fame. It's definietly an interesting story, but the overall tone is hagiographic, and the contrast between the young Jackson's astonishingly shy public persona and the confident performer is never completely explained: there are a lot of talking heads here, but none tell us anything that personal. Still, it left me wanting to know about the next phases of his life as well, the rise to megastardom and madness, and his unfortunately early death; and with a sense of recognition of his phenomenal talent, even though his music wasn't my personal taste.

Michael is a legend and this right here is a fantastic documentary of his early days as an artist. Amazing work by Spike Lee. And also rest in piece to the king Michael Jackson. We all love you and miss you man.

Off The Wall is my favorite Michael Jackson album, so when I heard that Spike Lee was gonna make a documentury about the making of that album it made me excited as I thought he did really good with 'Bad 25 (2012)' which was about the making of MJ's BAD album and 'shortfilms'.

Watching it it feels more rushed than 'Bad 25' which dug deep into the whole making of the album where as this 'Journey from Motown to Off the Wall' is a bit more unfocused.

I mean in a way it makes sense that it would, as it not only covers the making of 'Off the Wall' but the first half of the doc also covers Michael Jackson's career from the very beginning of Jackson 5 to the birth of said album.

Which isn't a bad thing but it also has some stuff I didn't appreciate much, such as there is a guy (think he's a rapper) who talks about how the first time he heard 'She's Out Of My Life' was when Eddie Murphy was making fun of him in 'Delirious'.

And then they go into cutting back and forth Michael Jacksons emotional performance to Eddie Murphy's parody and it just didn't sit right with me as I found it a bit disrespectful and also I don't think many people can relate to that random guy's story either.

And although Justin Bieber was a questionable interview-object in 'Bad 25' I think, Kobe Bryant is even more questionable who get's even more screen-time being interviewed here, like what does he even know about music?

I know Spike Lee is a big basketball fan but jeez.

Also feel like Spike Lee himself occasionally forget to just document as he often reacts loudly to what the interview-objects are saying, making various comments. He also takes the time to tell a story of a childhood story, with a very loose connection to MJ.

And a lot of interviews of substance are archive footage but overall it's still mostly entertaining and interesting.

I know I wrote a lot of things about some less good parts of the documentary but there is still more than enough good clips to go around to validate a watch and I actually kind of hope that Spike Lee will make a documentary about the making of 'Dangerous' as well.

Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall (2016) is a documentary movie directed by Spike Lee and it was great.

Positives for Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall (2016): It was cool to see a lot of interviews with actors, musicians and singers talking about how important Michael Jackson was to them growing up. I liked a lot of the footage from Michael Jackson's concerts. The documentary is 93 minutes long and is paced perfectly with enough stuff to keep you invested. And finally, it was cool to see Michael Jackson rise to fame and became the biggest pop singer ever.

Negatives for Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall (2016): This is a documentary movie that I will only watch one time as it isn't something that would be in the mood to rewatch anytime in the future.

Overall, Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall (2016) is a spectacular documentary movie on the biggest pop singer of all time and it will certainly please a lot of fans with a fun and interesting experiences on Michael Jackson.