Purely Joyful Movie!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A Brilliant Conflict

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

If this was a tribute to Michael Jackson, then it failed. Sure it had his music and it had him in it, but the writing was terrible and the integration of the music was forced. It didn't seem to have much of a moral to the story other than to dance. This is an entertaining movie for kids from about 4 to 6 possibly, any older and they might catch on that this show was pointless and sad. So much for honoring the King of Pop.

I watched the show and was impressed with how the music was integrated into the video. It was clear the plot was about conformity and how doing what you believe is alright in order to change things. The animation was very good. The animated dancing pumpkin's performance of MJ's dangerous song was excellent. Some of the scenes reminded me of the plot in Captain EO. The animated Michael performing Thriller was super. At the end, the message from Michael was Believe In Yourself.

I was puzzled when I first saw the trailer for this special. What does Michael Jackson have to do with Halloween, outside of the "Thriller" video, which was actually about horror movies rather than about the holiday?The characters looked cute, so I thought I would give it a try. What I saw was 42 minutes of something that played out like a movie based on a video game. The two protagonists, Vincent and Victoria, make their way through a series of challenging areas... a pumpkin patch, a haunted house, a cliff, for example. They encounter strange anthropomorphic characters along the way, some are helpful, some are villains. All this time they are fleeing from an evil magical woman named Conformity, who, like her name suggests, hates individuality and freedom of expression. She is a manifestation of the main characters' real-life job experiences; they both work for unappreciative employers who view them as mere cogs in a machine.What about Michael Jackson? Many hints are dropped throughout the special: a concealed figure with a gloved hand, a chimpanzee chauffeur named "Bubbles" (remember M.J.'s pet chimp?), a Michael Jackson- shaped icon that leads Vincent and Victoria to the next level in their journey. This leads up to an actual encounter with Michael that lasts maybe a couple of minutes.I'm still trying to figure out the rationale behind creating a Halloween special which revolves around a celebrity who died in 2009. Does he return from the dead every October 31? Has he become a zombie, a reference to the "Thriller" music video? So many unanswerable questions. I didn't hate this special. There was a vague "don't give up on your dreams" message to it, which has been overdone. But I think the concept would have had more potential as a video game, with its villains and challenging levels. I highly doubt I would view this a second time, if it is ever rebroadcast.

I have to admit that I didn't even expect this to be good,and it sure didn't disappoint in that regard. It's mostly bland at best.First of all, the animation is below average. Sometimes, it's good enough, but there are times where it didn't look good at all, like the last part of the movie. Have you ever seen those California Raisins commercials? Well, when you finally see Micheal Jackson for the first time, not a single body part or his bat form, the animation will more than likely remind you of that. In fact, that's what most of the dancing at the end looks like. It would have been fine if it was animated with clay, but this is a computer animated special. It also doesn't help that some models looking like plastic dolls, like the main characters for example. Some of it might have something to do with the lighting, but it does show how cheap this show is.Another issue I have is the story. It's your typical "follow your heart" story, but the pacing is a bit fast. Seriously, as soon as a character is introduced, they're gone until the final scene. For example, the main characters' father and boss. Vincent wanted to be a DJ, but his father wants him to take over his grocery business, while Victoria wanted to dance at some party until her boss gives her the job of taking care of her dog for the night. While that much is known, you don't really see those two characters again until the final seconds of the movie. You also have no reason to find these characters interesting. While some of them do have motives, such as Hay Man wanting to bring music back from the authoritarian Calamity, they certainly don't bring any note-worthy personality. In fact, the two main characters are basically walking pieces of wood. Some of this could be blamed on pacing, since a majority don't have that much screen time, but these characters could've been fleshed out a bit more. Overall, the story wasn't great in the slightest, and it was just so bland.It's pretty hard to recommend this movie. While it's not a bad movie, it's just bland to the point that you wish it was. It's fast pacing doesn't help matters either, as it just made the movie sorta hard to follow. I recommend not watching this movie seriously. About the only things about this special that was decent was the voice acting and music, but with experienced actors such as Jim Parsons (which means I could never unthink about Sheldon dancing Michael Jackson-style) and mostly Michael Jackson music (except for Someone's Watching Me), is that really a surprise? If you do watch it, just don't expect anything spectacular.