From: www.philstar.com

This Is It, the much-awaited movie showing the Michael Jackson in rehearsal during the days leading up to his unfortunate demise last summer, is now in the theaters. Just like the concert of the same title that never happened, the picture turned out to be a major event. So much has been said and more will still be said about this film.

Fact is, it is flawed, incredibly so. It is made up of out of focus, unplanned, badly lighted shots and has uneven sound. The editing is repetitive with the same shots fading out or fading in for different scenes. It gets lethargic during the slow numbers. Oh well, they were probably just going along with the beat of the music.

This Is It is not really a feature film. No Jackson bio in here. There is no coherent story. Neither is it a documentary, as it does not narrate or delve into anything. It is just a mishmash of footage that most of the time showed Jackson at work.

The worse criticism of all though is, it is exploitative. Jackson has been dead for only a few months, when here come the people who might have made a lot of money on the aborted concert tour with a movie. They probably just want to recoup their investment. And they had the gall to release it on Halloween season yet!

On the other hand though, please be reminded that the shots that make up This Is It were never intended for public viewing. Nobody thought then that those would ever be spliced together to make a movie. They were merely rehearsal aids to find out what they were doing wrong. There are some great moments with the sound thanks to the fantastic band and some enhancements in the musical numbers, but the rest was not recorded through a proper mixer.