Publication Date: 04-22-2026

Michael Jackson’s This Is It (2009) review

Dir. Kenny Ortega

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★★

I’ll never forget where I was when I learned that Michael Jackson died. Seriously, I won’t. It was my 13th birthday, and my parents and I were on vacation in the Wisconsin Dells. We were checking into the Wilderness Resort, and on the lobby TV was a helicopter POV of Jackson’s Neverland Ranch: “Michael Jackson Found Dead in Home; ‘King of Pop’ was 50” was the chyron, I recall. This was hours after Farrah Fawcett had passed away the same day, so my 13th birthday was proving to be very unlucky.

Up until that point, I was a casual Michael Jackson fan. I had “Beat It,” “Bad,” and a handful of other songs on my iPod, along with an obligatory copy of Thriller on my CD shelf. Even as I splashed around in wave pools, pigged out on great food, and went on to enjoy my birthday vacation. But when I got back home, I knew I had a lot of catching up to do. That summer, I devoured Michael Jackson music, movies, literature, and more. I found myself transfixed by the sudden loss of someone who always appeared to be larger-than-life. I hadn’t felt the way I felt when Jackson died — a mix of sadness, mourning, and intrigue for someone I didn’t personally know — and never did until Kobe Bryant died in 2020. It’s like the Statler Brothers so beautifully sang, “when Elvis died, we all knew that we could too.”

So, of course I begged my mother to take me to see Michael Jackson’s This Is It when it hit theaters in October 2009. It was a divine theater experience, with the auditorium more than half-full on a Saturday morning. At the time, I didn’t understand the magnitude of Jackson’s planned two-leg/50-show tour at the O2 Arena in London. This was the King of Pop’s first extended tour since 1996, and watching This Is It for the second time, the feeling of heartbreak is as strong as the enjoyment. For nearly two hours, you see dancers, choreographers, directors of all types, lighting personnel, stage crews, gaffers, handlers, and many other talented souls put their time and effort into a series of concerts that would go on to be among the greatest never to happen.

But that’s not what This Is It is really about. Save for a memorial graphic, which precedes the end credits, this is a compilation of footage we were never supposed to see. This is intimate behind-the-scenes footage involving painstaking rehearsals, sound checks, choreography sessions, and on-the-spot “check-ins,” if you will, with dancers and various individuals.

Using footage gathered from April to June 2009, all leading up to a tour slated to begin in July, the film allows the machinations of a concert residency to breathe and be shown in the raw. The most surprising aspect of This Is It remains how Jackson did not appear neither to be sick nor frail. He’s alert and nimble, always soft-spoken, yet micromanages his team of dancers. Even the orchestra members are instructed to try and follow along with Jackson, when he requests a little more “pause” on certain beats, or wants less of a rush during solos. He’s an artist who feels the rhythms of his compositions, and then when acting on them, has the most fluid physical movements you’ve ever seen.

This Is It takes the viewer through the rehearsals for various numbers, including what appeared to be an unbelievably beautiful rendition of “Smooth Criminal,” on top of a horror sequence involving “Thriller” playing while ghosts swarmed the audience overhead. Through archival footage, initially not designed to be seen by anyone other than crewmembers, we get the skeleton of the This Is It concert tour. At one point, Jackson is inserted into classic movie scenes involving Humphrey Bogart, and even has a gun-battle with Bogart. It’s revolutionary stuff. We’ll never know how it would’ve looked from the vantage point of the crowd. Even at its most raw, what was planned for the “Human Nature” number still manages to strike an emotional chord.

One of the many delights of the documentary is seeing Jackson interact with his team of choreographers and backup singers. He’s seldom seen hovering in the background, eyeing individuals, and passively observing their performances. Instead, he joins them, sometimes instructs them personally, and eventually leads them in the routine on his own instruction. Of course, Kenny Ortega — the doc’s credited director and the director of Jackson’s London tour — tries to pick up on his demands, and help guide the performers, but Jackson (respectfully) corrects him, while correcting his team. The whole dynamic is fascinating.

If Moonwalker was a difficult film to review because it was structured in such a disconnected way, then Michael Jackson’s This Is It is similarly difficult to review because it’s footage that was never meant for the public eye. We’re watching what we were never meant to see, and that’s a treat in itself. I couldn’t remember how it ended. I couldn’t recall if the behind-the-scenes concert footage cutaway to news footage of Jackson’s death on June 25th, 2009. Alas, it didn’t. And it’s better for having not. The reactions, heartbreak, sadness, and true devastation felt by the crew is meant for another documentary. The fact that we still haven’t gotten that one proves that was what we were never supposed to see in the first place.

My review of Captain EO (1986)
My review of Moonwalker (1988)
My review of Michael Jackson’s Ghosts (1996)
My review of Bad 25 (2012)
My review of Leaving Neverland (2019)
My review of Michael (2026)

Directed by: Kenny Ortega.