“This Is It” was supposed to be Michael Jackson’s last set of concerts before bidding farewell to the stage, and he invested so much of himself into it that he wanted the rehearsals to be put on film as a reminder of how he labored over it. The result is surprisingly underwhelming, but since he would’ve wanted the raw footage for himself, it doesn’t really seem fair to judge it too harshly: It’s hard to apply critical terms to a project that we weren’t even meant to see in the first place.

Still, the people behind this film aren’t off the hook. When you’re dealing with content that’s still in embryo and trying to pass it off as some kind of masterpiece, don’t be surprised when it can’t live up to the hype. The fact that this film got a theatrical release proves that the delirium stirred up by Jackson’s death earlier this year is generating plenty of income for people who are out to cash in on it, and while most of them are striking while the iron’s hot, more money is sure to be made in the near future. Like the Beatles or Tupac Shakur, his limited body of work is sure to be milked for years to come.

To Jackson’s credit, despite the fact that he hadn’t given a live performance in nearly a decade, he could still turn on the magic when he wanted to. The problem, though, is that he didn’t always want to, at least not in the privacy of his rehearsals. His determination to conserve his voice is such that he sings some lines and keeps quiet during others, particularly during his Jackson 5 medley and the show’s opener, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.”

Even performances that are well-executed are compromised whenever the movie unwisely calls attention to all the bells and whistles onstage, not the least of which is a series of short films that were put together as bookends for Jackson’s music. As good as numbers like “Earth Song” and “Smooth Criminal” are, they’re inter-cut with unnecessary footage of felled trees and Humphrey Bogart brandishing a gun, which suggests that Jackson’s faith in his abilities to hold down an entire show might’ve been fading.

If that’s true, he shouldn’t have been so hard on himself. In fact, the best moments in “This Is It” are when he gets beyond all of the gimmicks and carries the material with raw talent and passion for his craft, like what comes through in “Billie Jean” and “Human Nature.” Though it’s true that he’d been singing these songs for decades, here he proves that he still had a great deal of love for them, and although he claimed he’d never perform them again, he had no understanding of how right he was.

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