Off The Wall is my favorite Michael Jackson album, so when I heard that Spike Lee was gonna make a documentury about the making of that album it made me excited as I thought he did really good with 'Bad 25 (2012)' which was about the making of MJ's BAD album and 'shortfilms'.
Watching it it feels more rushed than 'Bad 25' which dug deep into the whole making of the album where as this 'Journey from Motown to Off the Wall' is a bit more unfocused.
I mean in a way it makes sense that it would, as it not only covers the making of 'Off the Wall' but the first half of the doc also covers Michael Jackson's career from the very beginning of Jackson 5 to the birth of said album.
Which isn't a bad thing but it also has some stuff I didn't appreciate much, such as there is a guy (think he's a rapper) who talks about how the first time he heard 'She's Out Of My Life' was when Eddie Murphy was making fun of him in 'Delirious'.
And then they go into cutting back and forth Michael Jacksons emotional performance to Eddie Murphy's parody and it just didn't sit right with me as I found it a bit disrespectful and also I don't think many people can relate to that random guy's story either.
And although Justin Bieber was a questionable interview-object in 'Bad 25' I think, Kobe Bryant is even more questionable who get's even more screen-time being interviewed here, like what does he even know about music?
I know Spike Lee is a big basketball fan but jeez.
Also feel like Spike Lee himself occasionally forget to just document as he often reacts loudly to what the interview-objects are saying, making various comments. He also takes the time to tell a story of a childhood story, with a very loose connection to MJ.
And a lot of interviews of substance are archive footage but overall it's still mostly entertaining and interesting.
I know I wrote a lot of things about some less good parts of the documentary but there is still more than enough good clips to go around to validate a watch and I actually kind of hope that Spike Lee will make a documentary about the making of 'Dangerous' as well.
