Fans shouldn't miss 'It'

For fans of Michael Jackson, myself included, "This Is It" provides a sometimes exhilarating, sometimes depressing last look at the King of Pop during rehearsals for what would have been his final run of concerts.

Cobbled together from documentary footage shot at L.A.'s Staples Center, "This Is It" is most notable for what it doesn't do - it doesn't stray from the rehearsal space, it doesn't show the public reaction to his death, and it doesn't bring the rest of Jackson's family into the fold. The focus is solely on presenting what these final concerts, which were to be staged at London's O2 Arena, would have looked like.

That is accomplished by blending multiple takes of songs, showing short films that would have been displayed on the big screen for the arena audience, and letting director Kenny Ortega ("High School Musical") and his crew explain the setpieces. The film only deviates from the rehearsal footage for short testimonials from Jackson's dance crew and a rather maudlin sermon Jackson delivers about saving the environment.

The rehearsals contain moments of brilliance. Jackson, who looks downright skeletal throughout the film, displays the moves that made him famous in performances of "Smooth Criminal" and "The Way You Make Me Feel." The controversial "They Don't Care About Us," which shocked the public with its original anti-Semitic lyrics, finds new life as Jackson's war cry; it provides the film's most adrenalizing sequence.

I suspect the lingering memory of the film will be Jackson's bare, beautiful vocals on "Human Nature." There are times in the film where the weary star's pipes are not up to the task, but he gives this favorite from "Thriller" his all in one of the show's quiet, restrained numbers.

The film ends, appropriately, as the concert would have, with back-to-back performances of "Billie Jean" and "Man in the Mirror." Hearing these titanic pop songs reverberate through a movie theater is a thrill in itself.

Some will criticize the film for being a loving portrait of a polarizing figure with more than a few skeletons in his closet, but "This Is It" doesn't need to address those skeletons. It is intended as a celebration of the man's music, andt is nowhere near the canonization it might have been; a number of Jackson's own music videos are far more self-aggrandizing than this movie.

Is it a great piece of filmmaking? No - it wasn't even supposed to see the light of day, if we believe the film's opening crawl. But fans won't want to miss his final bow.