'This Is It' is bittersweet celebration of Jackson

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How much of "Michael Jackson's This Is It" can we believe?

Was Jackson, 50 at the time of his death June 25, in rougher shape overall than the concert rehearsal footage assembled here suggests? Most certainly, yes. Produced with the watchful cooperation of the Jackson estate, pulled from 100-plus hours of film and video shot between March and June 2009, "This Is It" has no interest in telling the full story of anything.

Rather, director Kenny Ortega -- Jackson's partner in staging the London concert that was never to be -- is simply trying to suggest in some detail what sort of overstuffed career retrospective Jackson was attempting. Naivete, calculation and all, it looks as if it would've been a helluva show, complete with eco-consciousness-raising, an onstage bulldozer and 3-D "Thriller" footage, newly created to dazzle audiences.

"This Is It" is best taken as a bittersweet celebration of Jackson the dancer. When he revisits "Billie Jean" and "Beat It," we see someone who never really grew into any kind of visually recognizable adulthood, belonging to no easily recognizable notion of manhood. But the quicksilver limbs and perpetually busy hands were Jackson's way of expressing what he expressed best. He was a man both confined and liberated by movement, and "This Is It" constitutes a farewell to, and from, that man.

The self-made and then self-remade performer surrounded himself with a great group of backup dancers for this concert. Ortega's film showcases their efforts. There's a "Chorus Line" bit at the beginning where we see the cattle call, plus lots of testimonials from dancers addressing the camera on what Jacko means to them. You forgive the cliches because the dance footage makes this movie. (Though even Ortega might agree: A sharper-minded concert film might've weeded out the blather.)

The way Jackson interacts with Ortega ("yeah, I totally agree, Michael!" he says at one point, trying not to sound like a sycophant), or any of the army of collaborators, the audience can piece bits of Jackson's personality together. He is coy, nonchalant, controlling, a trouper, a sweetheart, a poseur -- sometimes all at once. We rarely see the performer in close-up, and the choice seems deliberate; that face was not his greatest piece of self-reinvention, only his most apparent. But in the film's longest extended take, when Jackson duets on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" with Judith Hill, we see how this performer used a vocal rehearsal to explore, and figure things out, and match his somewhat fraying voice to what he was thinking in terms of movement. He could dance brilliantly right up to the end, it's clear. "This Is It" may be a court

documentary, but as a heavily lawyered portrait of an artist, it's still pretty compelling.

MPAA rating: PG (for some suggestive choreography and scary images)

Featuring: Michael Jackson.

Credits: Directed by Kenny Ortega; choreographed by Michael Jackson and Travis Payne; produced by Randy Phillips, Ortega and Paul Gongaware. A Columbia Pictures release.

Running time: 1:51.