BOTTOM LINE: A fitting tribute to the late Michael Jackson, “This Is It” provides well edited rehearsal footage of those performances he was due to give in London which fans will no doubt cherish, although this pseudo-documentary could have had more coverage of Jackson’s interactions with those around him rather than the fleeting glimpses we are ultimately given.

THE GOOD: No story was bigger in the entertainment world this year than the untimely passing of the King of Pop Michael Jackson. Due to give his final concert tour in London, Jackson had a documentary crew follow every stage of its preparation for his personal archive. Concert director Kenny Ortega has now assembled moments from this footage in to a fitting tribute documentary of the man himself and his final months putting together the show that would have topped all those that came before. Fans will no doubt cherish this piece of history, and non-fans have much to enjoy as well as “This Is It” takes us through all of Jackson’s biggest hits, including rehearsal footage, newly filmed sequences for the video screen in the concert, and some personal moments of the man himself where if nothing else, we get to see how professional and perfectionist he was at getting the songs right for the fans. At some points, Jackson pushes his crew, dancers and singers to get it right, but at no point do you think it is to satisfy his ego because every time he keeps telling them, “I want the song to sound like it does on the records; that’s what the fans want.” Clearly a lot of work had gone in to this concert, with the new 3D sequences for Jackson’s biggest single “Thriller” and the new short film for “Smooth Criminal” being quite astonishing in their production value as examples shown in this documentary. However, the bulk of the documentary is about the music, with each of his big songs remixed and played throughout, broken up occasionally by the odd interview here and there, and some behind the scenes moments with Jackson and his crew. What is quite fascinating about this documentary is that despite an odd moment here or there, Michael Jackson still had ‘it’ even at the age of 50. “This Is It” celebrates Michael Jackson as the consummate artist who wanted to give the fans what they wanted one last time, and if nothing else can be said about the man, this documentary does bring out why he was so popular with so many people, and why he was the King Of Pop.

THE BAD: Although technically a documentary, “This Is It” is more or less a two hour MTV clip, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does cry out for more of those behind the scenes moments with the man himself. Here and there in this documentary we see personal moments of Michael Jackson interacting with his crew and they are gold, but just when you cannot get enough of it, the next song cues up and we are back in to MTV mode. Those moments are too few and fleeting. Given we are told at the beginning that this documentary crew followed the whole set up of the concert through to final rehearsals, surely there must have been more footage that could have been used of Jackson himself away from the performances. Director Kenny Ortega might argue that he was trying to present a glimpse of what the concert might have been, but given Jackson’s untimely death just prior to this concert series, it may have been better to present something more broad; a documentary that would have explored Jackson beyond this concert series as a proper tribute of his entire career and life.