Year: 1988
Director: Jerry Kramer
Country: US
Language: English
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker was set to coincide with the pop singer's 1987 album Bad. During the theatrical release in Europe and South America Jackson was on a worldwide Bad tour, his first as a solo performer. Unfortunately due to budget contraints, which is weird saying considering how prolific the icon was, Warner Bros. cancelled the proposed Christmas United States release. Instead North America would get a home video release near the end of the tour.
This anthology movie by, and starring, Michael Jackson in his prime, combines a number of music videos from his bestselling "Bad" album with a fantasy tale of Michael's confrontation with a ruthless drug dealer known as Mr. Big (Joe Pesci)
In the trailer for Moonwalker, the narrator says "Nothing could prepare you for this movie" and he's absolutely correct. It's a strange stream of consciousness artistic endeavor that only a man who, allegedly, tried to buy the bones of the elephant man could deliver. It has very little plot, very little structure and...the noid? Why does it have the noid?
Incorporating claymation, special effects, live performance footage, and even self-parody (the "Badder" sequence) Moonwalker baffled critics when it came out, yet due to Jackson's star-power still managed to sell more than 800,000 copies in the US. The film was adapted into an arcade game by Sega, and would later release on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.
Also starring Joe Pesci before he made it big with Home Alone and Goodfellas, Moonwalker is an odd film that can't really be compared to anything before or since. Its best parts are the music video scenes and its worst are the attempts at being a serious movie, however since it is Michael Jackson the whole film is worth viewing at least once for curiosity's sake. A weird movie starring an equally weird man.
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