Michael Jackson's Halloween (2017)

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely Fantastic

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

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.

Hmmm...what to think? Made for TV is all I can say! I didn't want to give this cartoon 5 stars because I had some enjoyment out of it. But it was a mediocre Halloween cartoon. The animation is phenomenal and some of the dancing is pretty darn good considering it mimics Michael Jackson's dances and what he was known for. I did enjoy that part. And of course the music was nicely incorporated with a decent mix of MJ songs with one of Rockwell's songs called 'Somebody's Watching Me'. However, I don't remember seeing the moon walk done on this cartoon, but their legs were so skinny and I could have missed it. Everyone knows the moon walk, right? That was a certain memory of Michael Jackson in my opinion and for some reason, I either missed it or it wasn't all that pronounced. They did do a lot of spinning though....and Michael Jackson in a cartoon made his debut appearance. Neat, MJ!! Dancing in his spirit. Well, for what it's worth, it wasn't all that bad. The story line was a bit corny and halloween-ish, but I gave it some credit because it's all with the spirit of Halloween and what can you expect but a piece of fantasy. I truly got into the 'dog's' character though and thought that was a cool cartoon dog.

The title, to me, seems pretty misleading. They're calling this "Michael Jackson's Halloween Special". While they do have a lot of references to Michael Jackson throughout this, Michael Jackson is not the main character. It's kind of like how the title, "The Legend of Zelda" confused people even me because the protagonist in the franchise is not Zelda but rather Link. Therefore, they could've called this "The Michael Jackson Clues Halloween Special" or "The Case of Michael Jackson Halloween Special".The story was unclear, it didn't seem to tell me exactly what the kids' quest was. Was it a quest for them to grow? Was it a quest for them to find a way to break the spell? It just seems all over the place.The characters are pretty annoying and contrived. The two protagonists' names both start with a V and I don't like it when main characters or a bunch of characters have names that start with the same first letter because then I get the characters mixed up.All of the jokes fall flat and didn't get anything but a little chuckle from me.The only redeeming quality about this sub-par cartoon is probably the little bit of action somewhere in the last 10 minutes of it.If Michael Jackson was still alive, he'd probably be pretty disappointed in this. I don't care if it's for kids. I don't even think kids over the age of 9 would be interested in it anyway. It's too silly for older kids. Younger kids might get a kick out of it.

I don't think Michael Jackson would've approved this. Actually, I'm pretty sure MJ would've been offended by it.Cheap animation, an extremely generic story with shoe-in characters and a terrible use of Michael Jackson music and references end up presenting one of the worst animated TV specials of all time. Stay away from it.