‘Leaving Neverland’: Movie Review
Pseudo-documentary worthless video
My younger brother is an avid Michael Jackson fan. From babbling about how shitty the Estate is to printing a Bad T-shirt, he really knows what he’s talking about. He is the most up-to-date person in the house regarding Jackson, meaning he was the first person to bring me to attention about the new HBO 4-hour “crap”, Leaving Neverland, which brings in the alleged victims of Jackson’s pedophilia where they recall history. He talked about how bland and inaccurate it is, how it is awesome that it has been taken to legal attention, and how stupid the mainstream media is for condoning such acts. Honestly, I thought of it as surreal, thinking that this is the fandom effect. Until I actually saw the movie.
Leaving Neverland is no ordinary documentary. It is basically a picturesque interview with the two “victims”, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, intercut at times with archival photos/videos. That’s… it. First of all, wait — this is not even a documentary, not even a movie. It feels like an… interview. An ordinary video you would expect in a free YouTube video or supplemental feature in a Criterion Collection entry. There’s barely any trait, it’s just so bland. You would have to be a Jackson pedophilia believer to really endure watching the two just talking about how Jackson allegedly has anal sex with them for over four hours. It’s sleep-inducing, and barely arthouse.
I find it a big disappointment, that amazing cinematography (as you can see in the image above), is ruined by the ugly faces of the alleged victims. Masterful works in this movie do not save it at all — in fact, it makes me wonder, Do the editor seriously can endure editing this boring opus? Even if you are a Jackson opposition unless you are a weirdo, Leaving Neverland is not even a treat — read Wikipedia’s short summary, that’s literally what the movie is trying to say. Nothing much, but stretched long, and locked by a dollar.
It is scary to me, second and last of all, that a conspiracy theory like Leaving Neverland is being accepted by society. Although no proof presented, the dead Jackson becomes a subject of concern among critics and audiences. Despite the many and rigorous investigations conducted showing no evidence, Leaving Neverland denies those facts, though not in a good way. I hoped celebrators of the video would respond to Macaulay Culkin, who was close to Jackson, saying the movie was false — but they didn’t. This entire movie is a joke — a very unfunny one. Leaving Neverland is like a normalization of the COVID-19 conspiracy series Plandemic, and a big example of societal collapse.
GENRE: Pseudo-documentary
DURATION: 3 hours 56 minutes
WATCHED ON: HBO GO
AGE RATING: 12+
LANGUAGE: English
