Michael

Jaafar Jackson doesn't play Michael Jackson. He becomes him. That's the whole ballgame here, and he wins it.

The moves are the thing. You watch him and your brain stops filing it under "actor doing an impression" and just starts watching Mike. That's not easy. That's the kind of thing that either lands in the first ten minutes or never lands at all, and this landed early.

Jaafar Jackson doesn't play Michael Jackson. He becomes him.

The film takes you from a small house in Indiana all the way to the King of Pop, and it's entertaining the whole way through. No dead spots where I was checking my phone.

Colman Domingo as Joe is the other reason to watch. I loved hating him. He plays it creepy and mean, and he doesn't ask you to understand him or feel bad for him. The detail that got me was the kids calling their father Joseph. Not Dad. Joseph. That one word tells you everything about how much connection there was between that man and his children, and the movie is smart enough to let it sit there without underlining it.

Nia Long as mom was great. She's the counterweight to all of that, and she holds it.

And then there's the makeup. My family and I sat there genuinely unable to figure out who Miles Teller and Mike Myers were playing. Not a guess, not a "wait, is that..." We just could not tell. That's a hell of a compliment to whoever was doing that work.

Would I put it on again? Maybe. But it stuck with me after the credits rolled, and that counts for something. Not every movie hangs around in your head the next morning.

Go see it. This one's for everybody.