michael movie review 2023

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The gang fighting over places. A youngster decides to gain control of the area. Can he complete his dream of ruling over the place? The gang fighting over places. A youngster decides to gain control of the area. Can he complete his dream of ruling over the place? The gang fighting over places. A youngster decides to gain control of the area. Can he complete his dream of ruling over the place?

• Ranjit Jeyakodi
• Rajendra Sapre
• Kalyan Chakravarthy Tripuraneni
• Sundeep Kishan
• Vijay Sethupathi
• Divyansha Kaushik
• 8 User reviews
• 5 Critic reviews

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• ngandacinema
• Feb 25, 2023
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• February 3, 2023 (United States)
• Karan C Productions
• Sree Venkateswara Cinemas
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• Runtime 2 hours 32 minutes

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Michael Movie Review: Sundeep, Vijay Sethupathi shine in technically sound film that's bogged down by weak storyline

Michael is a gangster flick that's more style than story for the most part. having said that, sundeep kishan, vijay sethupathi and sam cs are the absolute highlights of this film, says our review..

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• The BGM by SAM CS is fantastic in the film.
• Vijay Sethupathi elevates the film in the second half.
• Michael is a story that works in bits and parts.

Release Date: 3 Feb, 2023

Every gangster movie is exciting to watch, not just because of the action, but because there’s a strong underlying emotional factor that gives rise to the violence. And Michael, directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi, also follows this template.

This film is set in Mumbai in the 1980s and Michael (Sundeep Kishan), an orphan who has grown up in Bombay, is the person around whom the story revolves. Gurunath (Gautham Vasuden Menon) is a leading gangster in Mumbai and Michael saves him from assassination - not once but twice - to the chagrin of his rivals. Gurunath treats Michael like his own son and while Amarnath, Gurunath’s son, watches with hatred, Michael is given an esteemed place in the gang. Gurunath eventually hands over the business of a bar, frequented by some of the worst gangs in the city, as a reward to Michael.

Meanwhile, Gurunath then assigns Michael the task of finding out who the last member of a rival gang was who wanted him dead. Michael heads to Delhi to stalk Theera (Divyansha Kaushik) and get close to her so he can find her father and kill him. But Amarnath also has plans of his own. However, things do not go as per plan once he meets Theera. Does he kill Theera’s father? What does Amarnath plan to do? What was Michael’s true motive in saving Gurunath?

Director Ranjit Jeyakodi starts off the narrative beautifully and it is gripping to watch Sundeep Kishan emerge as the new ‘physical hero’ in Telugu cinema. However, the movie starts to falter with the introduction of Theera in the first half. The romantic portions are slow and stretched out and the first two songs could have been avoided in this gangster drama. Though the romance forms the crux of the story, it's not well written and Divyansha Kaushik’s performance is OK. She seems to be crying for most of the film and it becomes annoying after a while.

It’s only in the second half, with the introduction of Vijay Sethupathi, that the pace picks up and we become invested in the film. When the backstory is narrated and the audience is made to understand why Michael does what he does, the film becomes more engaging, but it’s a tad too late.

Coming to the performances, Sundeep’s effort in transforming himself to play the angry young gangster in Michael is quite obvious and that is commendable. He managed to play Michael convincingly. Talented Vijay Sethupathi comes on screen in the second half and it’s actually him who carries the story forward. His acting is effortless and impactful. Varalaxmi Sarathkumar has a small role but she has done a good job and the audience roots for her.

Technically, Michael is solid – the cinematography by Kiran Koushik is excellent and music director Sam CS – who is really underappreciated – has delivered a brilliant BGM in Michael. It’s the story and writing by Ranjit Jeyakodi that lets you down since it’s old wine which is good only in bits and pieces. The age-old tale of someone wanting revenge for love and a son’s ambition to overthrow his father is not new to the audiences. The characterizations could have been better etched out as the presentation has to be new and this is where the writing is of utmost importance.

Michael is a gangster flick that’s more style than story for the most part. Having said that, Sundeep Kishan, Vijay Sethupathi and Sam CS are the absolute highlights of this film. Published By: Latha Srinivasan Published On: Feb 3, 2023 --- ENDS --- ALSO READ | Thalapathy Vijay said he loved Michael trailer and was very encouraging, reveals Sundeep Kishan I Exclusive

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‘Michael’ movie review: A labour of love that does not soar

Sundeep kishan reinvents himself in this moody period gangster drama by director ranjit jeyakodi that has a lot going for it, yet falls short of finding its strong voice.

Updated - February 04, 2023 05:14 pm IST

Published - February 03, 2023 05:36 pm IST

Divyansha Kaushik and Sundeep Kishan in ‘Michael’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Some films instantly draw viewers into their world and the many characters that inhabit it. Some films keep viewers at an arm’s length, unmoved by what is happening on screen. And then there are movies that are midway between the two possibilities. Michael , the Telugu-Tamil gangster drama that is also dubbed in Hindi, Kannada, and Malayalam, directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi and starring an impressive Sundeep Kishan, falls in the third category. It is a labour of love that benefits hugely from an ace technical team that adds to the mood of the drama, and yet, towards the end, Michael falls short of rising to its potential. 

The story unfolds over different time periods — the 1980s and 90s but is largely anchored in the mid-1990s. The drama is set in Mumbai and Delhi; we learn about the titular character from the point of view of Swamy (Ayyappa Sharma) and this portion is curiously captioned ‘after the climax’. We first see Michael as a young lad in a chapter captioned ‘before the beginning’ — before he became a gangster. 

Cast: Sundeep Kishan, Divyansha Kaushik, Vijay Sethupathi, Gautham Menon

Direction: ranjit jeyakodi, music: sam c s .

The young Michael comes across as a brooding boy who can hide his emotions and not shy away from brutal violence. His quest will involve a bloodbath. There will be a backstory of his mother, as indicated by a photograph and a few of her possessions he holds on to.

In the 90s, however, Michael wins the trust of Gurunath (Gautham Menon), an underworld gangster. Things do not go as planned when Michael is tasked with killing a girl and her father.

Ranjit doffs his hat to The Godfather, John Wick franchise and several gangster dramas. He is aware that he is not reinventing the wheel, and manages to create a make-believe world with intriguing characters in an atmosphere that adds a lot to the drama. 

Cinematographer Kiran Koushik’s palette is filled with warm tones, often revelling in deep browns and blacks. Gandhi Nadikudikar’s production design recreates the period setting with cars, landline telephones and accessories of the time. The action sequences choreographed by Dinesh Kasi appear raw and real.

When you strip Michael down to the bare bones, it is a revenge drama of a man who hunts with fire in his eyes. Several visual references try to amp up the flames, symbolically.

The layers peel slowly to reveal the true colours of some principal characters. Several of them, including Michael, are neither stark white nor black. A few are sinister from the word go but do not add to the film despite all the aura around them; like Anasuya Bharadwaj and Varun Sandesh’s characters. Anasuya is no stranger to a gangster drama (Pushpa - the rise) and does her best in the role assigned to her, as a scheming woman who knows to play her cards. Varun amps it up to fit into an over-the-top character fairly well. 

However, the film belongs to Sundeep Kishan. As Michael, he speaks very little and conveys the character’s mystery and menace through his body language that stays firmly on cue. The film’s trailer indicated that this is a story of a man who fought and lost in love. When Michael meets Theera (Divyansha Kaushik), an unusual romance brews. She keeps reminding him not to fall for her and that she will break his heart. There is another love story at the heart of Michael that is revealed later. 

In the pre-intermission portions, when one of the pivotal character’s true colours is revealed, it is an indication that the film has a lot more cards to reveal. All of them come out swiftly towards the last 10-15 minutes. Since the climax shoulders the weight of the story, the portions immediately post-interval come across as middling and even boring. 

A long-drawn voiceover spells out how a character can return from oblivion. It goes on and on and after a point, I wanted to say, please move ahead. 

The welcome addition to Michael is the presence of Vijay Sethupathi and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar as a couple full of spunk who can instil courage in a bruised younger couple and tell them, ‘leave it to us’. 

Sundeep’s performance is the spine of Michael; he owns his part and looks like a man who is hungry and possessed. Divyansha gets a role that requires her to appear mysterious and enigmatic and she makes it appear believable. For those who have watched Gautham Menon in Tamil and Malayalam cinema, his portrayal of evil will not come as a surprise. He plays the gangster warlord with a poker face and Ranjit tries to add to his charisma by making him read books such as The Godfather, The Old Man and The Sea and Macbeth . Does all this add to the intrigue? Not quite. 

An asset to the film is the music by Sam CS. For instance, take Divyansha’s introduction sequence that’s heavy on guitar and ends with her playing one after a dance performance. The music does the talking, even as Michael is reminded of his own mother’s photograph with a guitar. Appreciably, the women of Michael are no pushovers.

The story puts forth several questions concerning forgiveness and redemption. Some of the dialogues are sharply written. However, the gangster drama has a been-there-seen-that aura that robs the film of its sheen. 

Michael is a labour of love that, at times, feels too laboured and tries hard to impress. Despite an earnest effort by its actors and the technical team, the film falls short of finding its own strong voice in the melee of gangster dramas we have seen in the last decade.

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'Michael' movie review: Hyper-stylised action, muddled and chaotic drama

At one point, Gautham Vasudev Menon, playing the suave gangster Gurunath in Michael is reading the Venus in Furs. It is a book about a man who has a fascination with a woman who is cruel to him. He has this book with him while sending his protege Michael (Sundeep Kishan) on an assassination mission that involves a woman, Theera (Divyansha Kaushik). Gurunath talks about the black widow spider and the insect’s proclivity for murdering its sexual partners. It is a precursor to what is going to happen in Michael’s life. His steadfast life, which is filled with murder, mayhem, and madness, will soon be torpedoed by a melancholic melody, courtesy of a woman.

Just like in the book, Michael’s unending love for Theera takes him back to her even if he has to face insurmountable odds. Such a connection between a book and the film’s narrative is also seen when Gurunath reads The Old Man and the Sea, The Godfather, and Macbeth. While it is fascinating to make these connections, it isn’t like these are passing references that are put out there to test our literary knowledge. We also have director Ranjit Jeyakodi giving us an elaborate exposition. While this game of ‘connect the dots,’ is undoubtedly fun, the reason why we actually play this game while watching a bloody saga of revenge and retribution is that the proceedings are unbelievably monotonous and droll.

Michael begins with a prominent supporting actor from the KGF universe narrating the story of a boy who came in as a nobody to Mumbai and became a much-feared don of the city. One might think this is straight out of Nayagan or even KGF, and they will not be wrong. After a rather long-ish buildup for the titular character, we see how the daring boy becomes the fearless man in Gurunath’s arsenal. These scenes play out rather wonderfully setting the pace for Michael, which, by now, has reminded us of a bunch of films like Arun Matheswaran’s Rocky that presented violence in a highly stylised format. However, Ranjit and Co don’t really go all out on the visceral and gratuitous violence and keep it to a palatable minimum.

We have one never-say-die assassin searching for a girl, who is held captive by the antagonists. In between all this, we have the age-old trope of a son wanting to become the next underworld don even as the father doesn’t always favour him. We have seen this equation play out in films like Polladhavan, Bheeshma Parvam, and even... KGF. Oh also, there is a John Wick-inspired buildup for Sundeep, which doesn’t really land well because, despite the never-ending elevation scenes, they just aren’t enough to buy the actor as this dreaded Michael.

Honestly, it isn’t that Sundeep isn’t giving it his all. He is the heart, soul, and bones of the film, which also has Gautham, Vijay Sethupathi, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, and Divyansha giving it their all. However, for an ambitious film like Michael, it isn’t enough that the actors undergo physical transformations, and spout punch dialogues every second minute. It is the writing that has to back the ambition and the pizzazz. That is where Michael falters quite a bit and oscillates between being a colossal disappointment and a mildly engaging style statement.

There is an overwhelming sense of deja vu, and even the climactic twist isn’t that much of a reveal in the first place. The way the narrative unfolds to this point is something Ranjit uses liberally throughout the film. The random timeline jumps within a single sequence manages to be both non-cohesive and engaging, but the makers play this card one time too many, and the monotony in the story finds its way into the screenplay too. The biggest saving grace of Michael is definitely the background score of Sam CS, and the cinematography of Kiran Kaushik, which is just terrific and elevates the mood of the film whenever it goes down the route of predictability.

In the post-KGF world, guns and bullets have become so commonplace that there is very little novelty in such elaborate sequences anymore, and Michael suffers from the been-there-seen-that syndrome.  Also, it is time we do away with the trope of a gun-toting hero throwing his guns away to take on two burly henchmen instead of just shooting them dead and moving on. Even the never-ending bloody hand-to-hand combat scenes don’t really engage after a point because the emotion behind it all isn’t established strongly enough.

Yes, we have Theera say things like “Don’t fall for me, I will break your heart” and... she goes on to do just that. She says such strong statements and is established as a character with agency, and it is something we expect out of a Ranjit Jeyakodi film. While he impresses on that front by sketching a rather intriguing woman at the centre of things, mounting Micheal as a testosterone-driven action thriller doesn’t give the maker the scope that he had in the heavily underrated Ispade Rajavum Idhaya Raniyum to explore the romance between the lead pair.

So, when Gurunath, who is perplexed by Michael’s actions, looks at him, and says, “Oru ponnukaagava idhellaam panne nu nenacha aacharyama illa... asingama irukku...” I couldn’t help but nod my head in acceptance because the life of Gurunath is much more fascinating than whatever it is that Michael is brooding about. Also yeah, Vijay Sethupathi and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar play a rather fun couple who suddenly join this cycle of violence. In a film that is named after the lead, if the more interesting takeaways are the camaraderie shared between two characters playing cameos, and the list of books read by a satin-shirts-and-cool-shades sporting primary antagonist, then one thing is clear... all style and a semblance of substance make Michael a dull film.

Cast:Sundeep Kishan, Divyansha Kaushik, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Vijay Sethupathi Director: Ranjit Jeyakodi

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Michael review: Sundeep Kishan’s most ambitious film is a gutsy attempt

Michael movie review: sundeep kishan, gautham menon and vijay sethupathi's film has a great casting choice which makes it a great bigscreen experience..

Ranjith Jeyakodi’s Michael has to be the one of the best visually striking films in recent years. This is a statement that the film truly deserves and if you’re someone with a basic understanding of cinematography, every frame feels no less than a painting. This is a massively mounted action-drama that’s undoubtedly ambitious on all fronts but what it lacks is a story that can keep you invested right till the end. Even with the big twist in the end, you wish the payoff had come much earlier.

The film opens with a young Michael ( Sundeep Kishan ) arriving in Mumbai with a hunger for revenge. We get to know about Michael and his rise through the voiceover of a crucial character. Cut to a few scenes later, Michael aspires to be like Gurunath (Gautham Menon), a suave gangster who rules Mumbai. An opportunity presents itself when Michael risks his life to save Guru. Soon, Michael joins Guru’s gang and a few years later he becomes his most trusted guy who is quickly handed over the operations of Guru’s bars in North Mumbai. A few months later, Michael is sent on a mission to follow the daughter of Guru’s enemy and kill them both. As fate would have it, he falls in love with the girl, Theera (Divyansha Kaushik). Thanks to his actions, Michael earns the wrath of Guru and things soon turn bitter between them.

Watch trailer here:

Michael spends too much time in world-building and in making everything look exquisite. A lot of time is spent on justifying Michael’s anger but we’re never told the reason behind his thirst for revenge till the very end. By the time the reason is revealed, a lot of time is wasted in mindless action. As much as the action choreography deserves a lot of praise, it does get boring to watch after a point. It’s perfectly alright to make a violent film but when the violence lacks conviction and a strong emotional purpose, everything looks senseless. This is what happens with Michael for the most part and this is what lets the film down, despite being good in parts. Nevertheless, the film doesn’t shy away from being ambitious and it shows in Ranjith’s vision. Michael credits films like Nayagan, Deewar and John Wick as inspiration but it borrows heavily from KGF and even pays tribute to the Yash-starrer in a few scenes.

Sundeep Kishan is earnest from start to finish and he holds the film together with a very strong performance. He’s strongly complemented by Gautham Menon, who plays a gangster with effortless swagger. It’s a great casting choice and he isn’t your quintessential commercial cinema antagonist. Vijay Sethupathi has a special appearance but he still manages to shine in the few scenes he gets. Apart from the visuals, it’s Sam CS’s score that really elevates Michael and makes it a big screen experience worth cherishing.

Director : Ranjith Jeyakodi

Cast : Sundeep Kishan, Divyansha Kaushik, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Varun Sandesh, Vijay Sethupathi and Varalaxmi Sarath Kumar

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Michael Review: All Style, But Little Substance

Movie: Michael Rating: 2.25/5 Banner: Karan C Productions, Sree Venkateswara Cinemas Cast: Sundeep Kishan, Divyansha Kaushik, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Vijay Sethupathi, Varun Sandesh, Ayyappa P. Sharma, Anasuya Bharadwaj, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, and others Dialogues: Kiran Chakravarthy Music: Sam CS Cinematographer: Kiran Koushik Editing: R. Sathyanarayanan Producers: Bharath Chowdary, Pushkar Ram Mohan Rao Story, Screenplay & Direction: Ranjit Jeyakodi Release Date: Feb 03, 2023

Sundeep Kishan attempted a pan-Indian project with "Michael" after appearing in many bilingual films. It piqued people's interest.

Let's see if Sundeep Kishan's optimism paid off or not.

Story: It's the mid-'90s, and a young man named Michael has decided to kill his father. Gurunath (Gautam Menon), impressed by the boy's bravery, takes him under his wing. As an adult, the boy proves to be Gurunath's most reliable ally and protector.

When Gurunath’s son (Varun Sandesh) sees how much faith his father has placed in Michael (Sundeep Kishan), he becomes envious.

Gurunath eventually orders Michael to kill Theera (Divyansha Kaushik) and her father in Delhi. But Michael falls for her charm, and this sets off a chain reaction of events in which he is never quite sure who is on his side.

Artistes’ Performances: To look the part, Sundeep Kishan slimmed down. His Michael persona is spot on; he has less to say and more to do with action. The transformation of Sundeep Kishan is good.

Divyansha Kaushik is stunning at first, but her performance fizzles out later on. Vijay Sethupathi plays a small part that serves primarily to increase the film's star power.

Gautam Menon is miscast as a don. Varun Sandesh's portrayal of the jealous son is perfect.

Technical Excellence: The technical aspects of the film are excellent. The cinematography is superb, and the colour palette complements the theme perfectly. Besides the cinematography, the background music score is top-notch. The production values are first rate.

The editing department, however, ruined the mood due to the film's tedious pacing and lengthy runtime.

Highlights: Initial portions Stylized taking Technical and production values

Drawback: Weak story Dull pace Much build-up, less impact The climax portions

Analysis Similar to the opening of "KGF," in which a narrator who witnessed the entire event relates it in detail, "Michael" also begins with a narrator recounting the events he witnessed.

The story opens with the hero in his early years. It takes place in the middle of the 1990s. The visuals, music, and storyline all bring to mind "KGF" and "Vikram" films.

Ayyappa Sharma, who provides the voiceover for "Michael," effectively establishes the tone at the outset. Even though the sequences move at a painfully slow pace, the first interaction between Sundeep Kishan and Gautam Menon, the romantic track between Sundeep Kishan and the heroine Divyansha, and the first twist are all quite interesting.

Ranjit Jeyakodi, the film's director, uses the technique of withholding information and then revealing it in the film's climax. The film is interesting at first, but it quickly becomes tedious. It's easy to see that the director has lost control after a point.

This whole segment with Vijay Sethupathi and Varalakshmi Sarath Kumar, and the subsequent fight scenes, are incredibly tedious. By the introduction of Vijay Sethupathi, it becomes clear that the director lost the plot.

Also, with all this foreshadowing, we anticipate a surprising turn of events. But in the end, it's obvious that it's just a rehash of the "Munna" movie starring Prabhas.

So much buildup for a regular revenge drama!

It would have been different if the director had placed as much emphasis on the story as he did on the style. However, "Micheal" devolves into a futile attempt to tell a standard revenge drama in a stylized manner.

Overall, "Michael" is another example of a film that is more about style than substance. It's a gangster story. Sundeep's makeover, technical prowess, and slick visuals don't add much to the film, which suffers from a lacklustre narration.

Bottom line: Munna Michael

• Saripodhaa Sanivaaram Review: Fine Drama With Weak Story
• Maruthi Nagar Subramanyam Review: For a Few Laughs
• Aay Review: Message Packed With Humor

Tags: Michael Michael Review Michael Movie Review Michael Rating Michael Movie Rating Michael Telugu Movie Review

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Michael Review – All Style No Substance

OUR RATING 2/5

CENSOR U/A, 2h 3m

One day when Guru is attacked, Michael is tasked with finding the people behind it. Who are the attackers? The real reason for Michael’s growth in ranks forms the movie’s core plot.

Performances Sundeep Kishan plays an emerging gangster in the movie. He has gone with a toned chiselled body look for the same. While the physical effort is appreciable, unfortunately, it doesn’t help him overcome the issues at the script level.

The character is too heavy for a young hero like Sundeep Kishan. The depth and gravitas required to make the elevations believable are missing as a result. There is the body, but the body language needed to pull off an epic role is missing. The effort is there, and one has to appreciate it, but it isn’t enough for the part.

Divyansha Kaushik is okay. She is lucky to get a role that is integral to the narrative and also requires a certain kind of screen presence. Divyansha is decent in them, but again it fails to go to the next level to make it memorable.

Analysis Ranjit Jeyakodi directs Michael. It is a gangster action drama set in the nineties. The backdrop and the casting make the movie exciting.  

The movie begins on a promising note. The visuals wow us, and so do the making and the setting. However, as we get into the core story, the issues with the movie become apparent. 

The basic plot of Michael is an age-old gangster drama. Don has two upcoming gangsters under him, one being his son. The usual jealousy track and the heroic act on the other end leading to the conflict are done to death variety in the space. We have seen it many times before, and visuals are not enough to overcome it. 

Even the interval bang twist can be seen miles away. It is nothing new, and the makers, too, seem to realise it, but instead of freshening up in content, they do the same in form. So we have a stylish-looking package, but the contents inside are the same old gangster drama cliches. 

Still, one looks forward to the second half, mainly because of the casting. The prospects of watching Vijay Sethupathi, Varalaxmi Sarahkumar etc., make it possible. However, even they fail to give a boost to the proceedings. The block featuring them is dull and lacks impact. In fact, it is the same case throughout. 

It all starts with the director trying hard to make us buy Sundeep Kishan as the dreaded gangster. It never happens, and the elevations fall flat as he isn’t there yet in terms of the screen age and persona. The character feels too big for him. 

The ending, therefore, seems like a perfect fit even though very routine. It shows Michael for what he is really and not how he is portrayed. But, one lost interest a long time ago by that time. It’s one thing to set a tale in the nineties, but another to redo a story from the era without any upgrade. 

Overall, Michael is the definition of style without substance. It goes on and on exploring a predictable gangster drama story offering nothing but slick visuals. If you like the genre, give it a try for the fantastic technical work, and that’s it.

The actors who get meaty parts are Varun Sandesh and Gautham Vasudev Menon. The former appears after a long gap in a major film, playing a significant role. The retro look and all are well designed, and Varun Sandesh does well in small dramatic moments. However, whenever he has to show fierceness or aggression, the actor goes overboard, overdoing the required emotion. It exposes the weakness. 

And finally, the real hero of the film is Gautham Vasudev Menon. His character, presence and runtime feel bigger than the lead and are well done. Gautham Menon owns and lives the part, making one interested in the proceedings intermittently. The rest of the cast is okay.

Music and Other Departments? Sam CS’s music is alright, but he delivers with the background score. It enhances the overall appeal and mood of the flick. Technically the movie is slick, and none other than the cinematographer Kiran Koushik’s work highlights it. The production values are also good. R Sathyanarayanan’s editing could have been better, though. The movie needs to be tighter. The writing is par for the course. 

Highlights? Technical Values Cinematography BGM, In Parts 

Drawbacks? Predictable And Old Storyline Lack Of Substance Editing Weak Characterisations

Will You Recommend It? Yes, but with huge reservations

Michael Movie 2023 Review by M9News

Final Report:

Michael comes with visible excellent technical work. However, it falters where it matters the most – the story. It comes across as an age-old one that drags endlessly with stylish wrapping.

First Half Report:

Michael has an exciting 90s backdrop and terrific visuals aided with moments of brilliance in BGM. But, the core element of ‘story’ lacks a similar impact and leaves much to be desired. A lot depends on the second half now to see whether things improve.

— Michael takes off in the mid 90s backdrop. The crime and raise of Michael is being established.

Stay tuned for Michael Review, U.S. Premiere report shortly.

Cast – Sundeep Kishan, Vijay Sethupathi, Divyansha kaushik, Gautham Menon, Varun Sandesh, Ayyappa Sharma, Anasuya, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar

Banner – Karan C Productions LLP & Sree Venkateswara Cinemas LLP Producer name – Bharath Chowdary / Puskur Ram Mohan Rao Story, Screenplay, Director – Ranjit Jeyakodi Music Director – Sam CS DOP – Kiran Koushik Dialogues – Kalyana Chakravarthy Tripuraneni Editor – R. Sathyanarayanan ART – Gandhi Nadikudikar Stunts – Dinesh Kasi Music Composed, Arranged and Programmedby – SAM CS

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Release Date : February 03, 2023

123telugu.com Rating : 2.75/5

Starring: Sundeep Kishan, Divyansha Kaushik, Vijay Sethupathi, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Varun Sandesh, Anasuya Bharadwaj, Ayappa Sharma

Director: Ranjit Jeyakodi

Producers: Bharath Chowdary, Puskur Ram Mohan Rao

Music Director: Sam CS

Cinematography: Kiran Koushik

Editor: R Sathyanarayanan

Related Links : Trailer

PAN Indian film Michael starring Sundeep Kishan and Divyansha Kaushik in the lead roles, has hit the screens today. The movie has a huge star cast and gained very good buzz through its promotional content. So let’s see how the film is.

Gurunath (Gautham Vasudev Menon) is a dreadful gangster in Mumbai (then Bombay). He gets rescued by a small kid Micheal (Sundeep Kishan) from a murder attack. Gurunath hence asks his henchman Swamy (Ayappa Sharma) to raise Michael. After a few years, Gurunath is once again saved by Michael which makes the former assign his bar business to the latter. Gurunath learns Rathan (Anish Kuruvilla) is behind the attack. Gurunath directs Michael to kill Rathan and his daughter Theera (Divyansha Kaushik). Did Micheal complete the task? What happened later? This forms part of the story.

Plus Points:

Protagonist Sundeep Kishan gave his best to the film. The physical transformation of Sundeep is impeccable and his effort is clearly visible throughout. The actor performed exceptionally well in the intense fight sequences. Not just the action part, Sundeep Kishan killed it in the romantic sequences as well. Sundeep doesn’t have many dialogues in the movie but yet he leaves his mark.

The lead pair’s chemistry is good, The background score and visuals are top-notch in the film. Michael is easily one of the most stylishly made flicks in the Telugu cinema. The dark tone of the film is well set and the mood is maintained throughout. Credit to the technical team who made the film look so rich and elegant.

Vijay Sethupathi and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar impressed in their short cameos. Though they don’t have more scope to perform, both talented actors made their presence felt. If not for them the second half is totally forgettable. The action sequences are well-designed and they look good on screen.

Minus Points:

While the makers tried to showcase the movie glossy, the story and screenplay completely went for a toss. The whole concentration was on making the film look rich and stylish but in all this, the important elements are left out.

The movie’s story is a beaten-to-death concept. The writing department failed to come up with an engaging narrative and the rich visuals can’t keep the audience invested in this flick. There is style written all over the film but the emotional connect which is the need of the hour is completely absent.

It is not wrong to get inspired by other films, but in Michael, the impact was a bit higher. Few shots have so much resemblance to earlier films and at times the audience would get the feel of watching the older films as well.

There are a bunch of artists in the film but none make their mark. Their characters are poorly written and a few are absolutely wasted in their roles. The lengthy runtime adds to the woes.

Technical Aspects:

Kiran Koushik’s cinematography is surely the best in recent times and one can’t believe that it is his first film. He tried to add value to this action drama and he succeeded in his job. Sam CS did a terrific job as well. The haunting background score enhanced the feel at a few junctures.

The production values are superb and the makers spent high on the film. Coming to the writer-director, Ranjit Jeyakodi, he missed a huge opportunity with Michael .Despite having a magnificent technical team, he didn’t succeed in coming up with an engaging story. The screenplay is no different and the movie is filled with many boring moments. The characterizations are pretty weak and there isn’t any novelty in the film.

On the whole, Michael didn’t live up to the hype and was okay in parts. More focus was laid on the technical aspects. Hence the story and narrative were taken a beating. Sundeep Kishan and Vijay Sethupathi are the saving grace in this stretched action drama. You can give it a try but keep your expectations in check.

123telugu.com Rating: 2.75/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

Click Here For Telugu Review

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CULTURE MIX

Where Lifestyle Cultures Blend

Review: ‘Michael’ (2023), starring Sundeep Kishan, Vijay Sethupathi, Divyansha Kaushik, Gautham Vasudev Menon and Varun Sandesh

Arts and Entertainment

action , Anasuya Bharadwaj , Anish Kuruvilla , Ayyappa P. Sharma , Divyansha Kaushik , Gautham Vasudev Menon , India , Michael , movies , R. K. Mama , Ranjit Jeyakodi , reviews , Sundeep Kishan , Varalaxmi Sarathkumar , Varun Sandesh , Vijay Sethupathi

February 10, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Michael” (2023)

Directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi

Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation:  Taking place in early 1990s and briefly in the 1980s, primarily in the Indian cities of Bombay and Delhi, the action film “Michael” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.

Culture Clash:  An orphan who was adopted by a crime boss grows up to be a thug innvolved the boss’ revenge schmes and murder sprees, while secrets and lies affect people’s motives. 

Culture Audience:  “Michael” will appeal primarily to people who want to watch a lot of gruesome and gratituous violence in a movie that doesn’t have anything of quality to offer.

“Michael” is yet another mindless action flick about gangs and other people who are out for revenge. The story is a narrative mess, the fight scenes are unrealistic, and the acting is terrible. And with a total running time of 155 minutes, this flimsy story is dragged out for too long and quickly wears out its welcome with a lot of bloody and empty violence until the movie’s very predictable end.

Written and directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi, “Michael” does nothing clever or truly original, since it rips off ideas that have been in much better films. The movie (which take place in India, mostly in the early 1990s) tells a sloppily made story about an orphan who was unofficially adopted by a crime boss and has grown up to be a leading enforcer in his adoptive father’s gang. It should come as no surprise that secrets from certain characters’ past lives end up being revealed as a plot twist, although viewers who’ve seen enough of these types of unimaginative movies can easily predict this plot twist.

The title character in “Michael” is a swaggering thug (played by Sundeep Kishan), who has a mysterious past. In the early 1980s, Michael was adopted as an orphaned adolescent by a Bombay-based crime boss named Gurunath (played by Gautham Vasudev Menon), who has taught Michael everything that Michael knows about how to be a ruthless criminal. Michael has become Gurunath’s most trusted and most powerful enforcer.

However, not everyone in this crime family is a fan of Michael. Gurunath and his wife Charulatha (played by Anasuya Bharadwaj) have a biological son named Amarnath (Varun Sandesh ), who’s about the same age as Michael. Charulatha and Amarnath seem to resent Michael and treat him like an interloper in the family. Amarnath is predictably jealous of Michael because Gurunath respects Michael more than he respects Amarnath. Michael will most likely be named the successor to Gurunath’s crime operations.

Michael’s loyalty to Gurunath will be tested when Gurunath orders Michael to go to Delhi to kill two people: another crime boss named Rathan (played by Anish Kuruvilla) and Rathan’s seductive daughter Theera (played by Divyansha Kaushik), who doesn’t do much in the movie except pout, act sexy, and do some awkwardly place song-and-dance numbers. Gurunath wants Rathan and Theera to be murdered as revenge, because some of Rathan’s goons kidnapped Michael and stabbed Gurunath.

The movie never shows how, but Michael escapes from this kidnapping. (It’s an example of the movie’s awful screenwriting.) The next thing that viewers see is Michael taking a huge slab of boned meat and going into a nightclub and assaulting people with this slab of meat. He then uses weapons and his fists to assault more people. Many of the men being attacked work with gangster RK (played by R. K. Mama), who is an associate of Gurunath and who is also in the nightclub. RK warns Michael: “Michael, the day I come back will be your death day.”

Before Michael gets sent on the murder mission, Gurunath warns Michael not to be seduced by Theera. This is an example of some of the terrible dialogue in the movie: Gurunath tells Michael that female spiders kill male spiders after mating with them. “Women do the same things,” Gurunath adds. “We just don’t see it.” As soon as Gurunath makes this misogynistic statement, you just know that Michael will be seduced by Theera.

Michael starts off by stalking Theera, who ends up getting a car ride from Michael and tells him that she knows that he’s been following her. Theera asks Michael to stop the car so that she can get some ice cream from a street vendor. Then she smirks and tells Michael: “I like to slap before I kiss … You’re not the only person I’m kissing. You want to sleep with me, no? You’re not my type. I’m warning you: Don’t fall in love with me.”

Be prepared for more mind-numbing and idiotic scenes like that, because “Michael” is full of them. There’s a subplot about Michael getting protection from an unnamed operative (played by Vijay Sethupathi) and his wife (played by Varalaxmi Sarathkumar), who have clues to Michael’s murky past. Michael also has a faithful sidekick named Swami (played by Ayyappa P. Sharma), who is kind of useless and isn’t in the movie as much as people might think he should be.

“Michael” is nothing more than bombastic and ludicrous fight scenes cobbled together, with a few musical numbers thrown in to make the movie even more erratic. All of the characters don’t have any real substance and just go through the motions. The action scenes are beyond stupid and just further lower the quality of this already low-quality movie. The ending of “Michael” makes it obvious that the filmmakers would like to make a sequel to this atrocity, which should be avoided if viewers care about preserving some of their own brain cells.

Karan C Productions and Sree Venkateswara Cinemas released “Michael” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on February 3, 2023.

Michael: Release Date, Cast And Other Things We Know About Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson Movie

It's coming soon.

• Release Date
• The Trailer
• Other Things We Know

The King of Pop is getting the biopic he deserves – here is what we know about Michael, coming out as part of the 2025 movie schedule. 

Plenty of music icons have received the movie treatment over the last several years. We could talk about Bohemian Rhapsody and its awards , Rocketman, or maybe One Love. 

But today, we are talking about the one and only Michael Jackson and the fact that he's getting the music biopic that most of us knew would happen. This is what we know so far about Michael. 

What Is The Michael Release Date?

As of updating this in July 2024, Michael will be released on April 18, 2025, according to a Variety article from January. While it won't be appearing on any 2024 movie schedule , we at least know that the film will be coming next year. 

There are already plenty of movies planned for 2025, from the upcoming Marvel movie releases like Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four, and more, to the latest live-action Disney movie, Snow White . Having Michael join that impressive list is incredible and a little overwhelming, considering how many contenders there are for the box office already. 

But, I feel it'll still be a hit no matter what – this is MJ we're talking about. 

The Michael Cast

With a star-studded movie like Michael, you can only imagine what the cast will be like. Here is who we know will be in the upcoming biopic:

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Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson

Variety confirmed in January 2023 that Michael is keeping the casting in the family for its main star – meaning Michael Jackson's nephew, Jaafar Jackson, will portray the iconic singer.  

The actor is the son of Jermaine Jackson, Michael Jackson's brother, and a part of the Jackson 5, which started Michael on the road to super fame in the first place. The actor even shared his excitement for the role on Twitter , saying he was "humbled and honored" to be playing his uncle. 

Jackson has appeared in several music videos with his family, was featured on Jacksons: The Next Generation, and he also sings. So personally, I think this is the best decision – and I have a feeling he'll bring all of his talent to the screen. 

Antoine Fuqua (who was confirmed to be directing Michael by Variety in January 2023), even commented on Jaafar Jackson's casting in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in August 2023, saying that the similarities between Jaafar Jackson and his uncle were "uncanny:"

It's uncanny how much he's like Michael. Sounds like him, dances like him, sings. It's really uncanny. Graham King, who is a fantastic producer, found him, and introduced him to me, and I was blown away.

Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson

In late January 2024, it was confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter that Colman Domingo had signed on to play Joe Jackson, the famous patriarch of the Jackson Family. Domingo had quite the 2023, appearing in The Color Purple cast, as well as the Academy-Award nominated film, Rustin. Aside from that, he’s appeared in films like If Beale Street Could Talk, Lincoln, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and more. 

Domingo has even gone on record in his support of the film, specifically in an interview with Entertainment Tonight in early July 2024, saying the film will “tell the story of a very complicated person” without glamorizing the story:

[Michael will] tell the story of a very complicated person. Michael Jackson is undeniably one of the most prolific artists that has ever been on this planet. He's a complicated human being and I think what the film will do is tell the story of a very complicated person. Everyone has a story. [The film will] shine a different light on Michael Jackson.

Nia Long as Katherine Jackson

In late January 2024, Deadline announced that Nia Long would take on the role of Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother. She starred as Lisa on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , and has appeared in several films like The Best Man, Big Momma’s House, and more. She also had a leading role in Empire. 

Miles Teller as John Branca

The Wrap confirmed early February 2024 that Miles Teller would play John Branca, the well-known attorney of Jackson. Teller even spoke about the upcoming part with Variety (via Instagram ) and how “excited” he was to play the role in such a huge film:

You only get so many opportunities in this business to make films. I'm really excited to be a part of it. I think it's going to blow people away. Regardless of what you know or what your opinion may be, Michael is one of the greatest to ever do it, if not the greatest. He deserves a movie, and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Teller has appeared in movies like Top Gun : Maverick, Whiplash, Too Old to Die Young and more. He even starred in The Offer on Paramount Plus. 

Jayden Harville, Jaylen Lyndon Hunter, Judah Edwards, and Nathaniel Logan McItyre As Four Members Of The Jackson Five

Before Michael Jackson was a solo act, he was a part of The Jackson Five , a singing group made up of him and his brothers. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed in late February 2024 that all four of the other Jacksons were cast to make up the group. 

Jayden Harville, Jaylen Lyndon Hunter, Judah Edwards, and Nathaniel Logan McItyre will play Jermaine, Marlon, Tito and Jackie in their younger years. The older versions of Jermaine, Marlon, Tito and Jackie will be played by Jamal R. Henderson, Tre Horton, Rhyan Hill and Joseph David-Jones. 

Additional Cast Members

Variety confirmed in early March 2024 that Laura Harrier will portray Suzanne de Passe, a “pioneering female music producer.”

Variety also confirmed several castings in late March 2024, including: 

• Larenz Tate as Berry Gordy
• Kat Graham as Diana Ross.
• Jessica Sula as La Toya Jackson
• Liv Symone as Gladys Knight
• Kevin Shinick as Dick Clark
• KeiLyn Durrel Jones as Bill Bray
• Kendrick Sampson as Quincy Jones.

There was also one additional casting confirmed in April 2024 by Deadline – Derek Luke will play Johnnie Cochran, the man who repped Jackson during the 1993 child molestation case, which was a huge deal during Jackson’s time alive. 

I mean, this just makes me even more excited. Can this movie get here already? This cast is awesome. 

When Can We Expect The Michael Trailer?

While there isn’t a trailer yet for the movie, footage was shown at CinemaCon 2024, which CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell recapped for fans to read about. The first-look showed stretches of Jackson’s life all the way back to his time in Indiana, and then would jump to major points in his career. 

With this being said, it sounds like a decent amount of the film was already completed, but there’s no trailer just yet. We’ll just have to wait and see. As of updating this in July 2024, there is still no trailer, but hopefully we’ll get something soon enough. 

What Michael Will Be About

Michael Jackson has a heck of a history, from his time as a young child star in the Jackson 5 to his vast career as a soloist, releasing some of the most famous albums of all time. He's also had a lot of legal trouble as well, and several allegations thrown his way, even more than a decade after his death. 

The director of Leaving Neverland had a lot of thoughts about the new biopic.

Thankfully, we have an idea of what Michael will be about, as reported by Variety when the film was confirmed to come out in 2025. The story will follow the life of Michael Jackson, from his rise to fame and the complicated life he faced, including his "personal struggles" and more, where fans will get an "inside look" into what his mind was like. 

In March 2024, in a statement to Variety , Graham King, one of the producers on the movie, talked about how the film will take an unbiased look into the pop star’s life, and that while Jackson was a “complicated” person, he still had a legacy “worth exploring:”

Michael’s life was complicated. As a filmmaker, I look to humanize but not sanitize and present the most compelling, unbiased story I can capture in a single feature film and let the audience decide how they feel after watching it. Michael clearly remains an impactful, culturally relevant artist with a life and legacy worth exploring.

If the film truly is going to show everything with Michael’s life – and we already know the actors who will be playing his legal representation – I genuinely feel we are about to get a full-life biopic about this talented but complicated artist. 

Antoine Fuqua Is Directing

As discussed above, Antoine Fuqua will be directing Michael. The director has been behind many popular franchises, including The Equalizer trilogy. Some of his other movies you might have heard of include King Arthur, The Guilty, The Magnificent Seven, Brooklyn's Finest, and Emancipation . 

Fuqua has also worked as a producer on other films, such as Infinite and Bullet Train , so he's been all over the place regarding genre. But I feel he'll be great with Michael just from how he talks about the film in his interviews.  

John Logan Wrote The Script

Something else that we know from the Variety article regarding the release date is that John Logan wrote the script for Michael. 

The screenwriter is known for his writing credits on several critically acclaimed and blockbuster movies, such as Gladiator, Hugo, The Aviator, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and two James Bond movies , Skyfall and Spectre. 

With a resume like that, it's hard to imagine Michael not being a great story. 

Michael Will Be Using Michael Jackson's Music

When Deadline confirmed that the movie was happening in November 2019, it was also confirmed that the Michael Jackson estate gave Graham King (one of the producers) the rights to use Jackson's music in the film – and permitted him to make the film overall. 

This is a significant deal when it comes to biopics about music stars. The most prominent example I can think of is when the Elvis estate slammed the new Priscilla movie regarding the portrayal of Elvis Presley . It's almost never a seamless process when an adaptation is made regarding these famous stars, but to hear that the estate gave the studio the rights to use the music and produce the film is great. It was even confirmed at CinemaCon 2024 that there are going to be “more than 30 songs” of Jackson’s career used in the film (via The Hollywood Reporter ), so get prepared to dance. 

Filming Has Completed

Get ready to dance soon enough, because filming for Michael is all wrapped. As reported in the Variety article regarding the release date, Michael began production on January 22, 2024. And then in May 2024, the production studio behind the film, GK Films, posted on their Instagram that filming for the movie had come to an end:

A post shared by GK Films (@gkfilms) A photo posted by on

Considering the film is set to release in 2025, this totally lines up. We know that filming was still ongoing in April due to the footage shown at 2024 CinemaCon Lionsgate Panel,  so it makes sense that it’s all done now. That just means we might get a trailer soon enough. 

What are you the most excited for when it comes to Michael? I will have to brush up on my Jackson playlists because I can almost feel the songs sticking in my head for hours on end. 

A self-proclaimed nerd and lover of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, Alexandra Ramos is a Content Producer at CinemaBlend. She first started off working in December 2020 as a Freelance Writer after graduating from the Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in English. She primarily works in features for movies, TV, and sometimes video games. (Please don't debate her on The Last of Us 2, it was amazing!) She is also the main person who runs both our daily newsletter, The CinemaBlend Daily, and our ReelBlend newsletter. 

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Common Sense Media Review

Gentle, kind comedy has smoking, drinking, sex references.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Michael is a gentle and heartwarming comedy drama about an angel on Earth, and has plenty of positive messages, some smoking, and implied sex and references. Michael (John Travolta) is a scruffy angel who lives for the moment but spreads many positive messages, such as communication,…

Why Age 12+?

Character walks around in boxer shorts and scratches their genitals. A character

Main character is regularly seen smoking. Characters occasionally drink beer.

Characters punched and knocked about in a Western-style bar brawl. A dog is hit

Infrequent language includes one use each of "screwed," "s--t," "pecker," and "b

Kellogg's Frosted Flakes featured in one scene.

Any Positive Content?

Promotes kindness, compassion, empathy, and appreciating life.

Michael is an angel who dedicates his life to helping others but, knowing his ti

Main cast is all White. Some gender balance. Brief references to "Indians" and "

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Character walks around in boxer shorts and scratches their genitals. A character proves particularly attractive to others. Judge requests to see a character in private and sex is implied. Characters kiss, including in bed the morning after spending the night together.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Characters punched and knocked about in a Western-style bar brawl. A dog is hit by a truck. A character dies of natural causes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent language includes one use each of "screwed," "s--t," "pecker," and "bastard."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive messages, positive role models.

Michael is an angel who dedicates his life to helping others but, knowing his time on earth is short, also indulges his own desires with sugar, cigarettes, and alcohol. He is kind, thoughtful, confident, present, and open with his emotions. Frank Quinlan is a tabloid magazine journalist who has forgotten how to be kind and to love. With the help of an angel, he becomes more thoughtful and opens his heart. Dorothy is forced to be untruthful and feels bad about it. She owns up and apologizes. Vartan is an angry editor who employs sneaky tactics to remove a member of staff. Huey is a journalist who is kind to his dog and talks about how he loves his wife.

Diverse Representations

Main cast is all White. Some gender balance. Brief references to "Indians" and "Eskimos."

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Michael is a gentle and heartwarming comedy drama about an angel on Earth, and has plenty of positive messages, some smoking, and implied sex and references. Michael ( John Travolta ) is a scruffy angel who lives for the moment but spreads many positive messages, such as communication, empathy, and compassion. He smokes cigarettes, drinks beer, and is alluring to women. Two characters kiss and share a morning-after scene but sex is only implied. Characters fight during a bar brawl scene but there is no injury. After the fight, characters end up in jail. Occasional language includes one use each of "s--t" and "bastard." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

In MICHAEL, a letter from a woman in Iowa, who claims an angel lives with her, sets tabloid journalist Quinlan ( William Hurt ) and two colleagues on a cross-country journey of discovery. The smoking and drinking Michael ( John Travolta ) isn't the angel they were expecting, but Michael still touches their lives in unexpected ways.

Is It Any Good?

Director Nora Ephron knows her way around feel-good. Overshadowed by her bigger hits You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle , Michael is a huge-hearted road movie with a touch of magic that's well worth seeking out. Travolta is excellent as the smoking, drinking miracle worker. Michael is a surprisingly complex character and Travolta hits every target along the spectrum that gets us lost in the movie's gentle world. Even its edges are rounded in the nicest possible way. Women are drawn to Michael -- the Travolta's undeniable charisma is one reason, the character's aroma of cookies and cakes is the cherry on top. We even get a sensual but light-hearted Travolta dance sequence that's equal parts Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever .

Michael may be an angel, but this isn't a religious movie. Nor is it an anti-religion movie. It's a movie about appreciating what you've got, making an effort to be kinder, savoring the moment, and learning to love. It's also a road movie. For its short runtime, there's nobody more pleasant to travel with than Travolta's angel, Hurt's crabby journalist, Andie MacDowell 's wannabe country singer, polite charmer Huey (Robert Pastorelli), and his pet dog, Sparky. By the time the group have completed their journey from Iowa to Chicago, everyone's a whole lot happier -- viewer included.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the different character strengths promoted in Michael . What examples of compassion , empathy , communication , and gratitude can you give from the movie? Can you think of a time when you've demonstrated these traits?

How were drinking and smoking portrayed? Were there consequences? Did it glamorize it?

Was Michael how you expected an angel to be? What do you think the movie showed us by defying expectations? Would you describe the film as a religious movie?

How did the film portray sex ? Was it affectionate? Respectful? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 25, 1996
• On DVD or streaming : September 8, 2009
• Cast : John Travolta , William Hurt , Andie MacDowell
• Director : Nora Ephron
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : New Line Cinema
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy
• Character Strengths : Communication , Compassion , Empathy , Gratitude
• Run time : 105 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : a mild barroom brawl, some language and sensuality
• Last updated : April 4, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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• Entertainment
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Michael: Release Date, Trailer, Songs, Cast

• Release Date 3 February 2023
• Language Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam
• Genre Action, Drama
• Duration 2h 3min
• Cast Vijay Sethupathi, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Sundeep Kishan, Anasuya Bharadwaj, Divyansha Kaushik, Ayyappa P. Sharma, Varun Sandesh, Raj Tirandasu
• Director Ranjit Jeyakodi
• Writer Ranjit Jeyakodi
• Music Sam C. S.
• Producer Bharath Chowdary, Puskur Ram Mohan Rao
• Production Karan C Productions, Sree Venkateswara Cinemas

About Michael Movie (2023)

Michael (Sundeep Kishan) is living a pleasant life, but the unexpected entrance of a powerful gang in his town leads to the loss of his partner. He then exacts revenge on the gang that rules the entire town.

Michael Movie Cast, Release Date, Trailer, Songs and Ratings

Michael Movie Trailer

Michael movie songs.

#	TITLE	ARTIST	DURATION	LISTEN
1.	Nee Podhum Enaku	Pradeep Kumar	3:46

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Michael Twitter Review: Fans hail Sundeep Kishan for 'stellar performance till date', Vijay Sethupathi steals the show

Updated Feb 3, 2023, 11:37 IST

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A fact-based drama that no one will dunk on, Air aims to dramatize events that changed the sports world forever -- and hits almost nothing but net.

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In this Michael film, Vijay Sethupathi , Sundeep Kishan played the primary leads.

The Michael was released in theaters on 03 Feb 2023.

The Michael was directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi

Movies like Veera Dheera Sooran (Part 2) , Love Insurance Kompany (LIK) , Brother and others in a similar vein had the same genre but quite different stories.

The soundtracks and background music were composed by Sam C S for the movie Michael.

The cinematography for Michael was shot by Kiran Koushik .

The movie Michael belonged to the Action,Thriller, genre.

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STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie

The twinkle in the eye is still there—the boyish charm, the self-deprecating sense of humor that feels particularly Canadian.

But the superb comic timing that made Michael J. Fox a superstar in the 1980s increasingly eludes him as the effects of Parkinson’s Disease take their toll—and he knows it, and he knows that you know it. After all these years as a performer, he consistently comes up with the perfectly snappy one-liner—it just takes him a little longer to deliver it sometimes.

Fox discusses the disease, his career, and how the disease has shaped his career with disarming candor in the documentary “Still: A Michael J. Fox Story.” And it is his story. Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (“ An Inconvenient Truth ”) wisely allows Fox to sit before the camera, look straight at us, and speak with wit and wisdom about the highs and lows he’s experienced over his extraordinary life. We see none of the talking-head interviews we might expect with doctors, former co-stars, or Fox’s longtime wife and fellow actor, Tracy Pollan . Reminiscent of Errol Morris ’ signature style, Guggenheim has crafted the powerfully intimate sensation that Fox is confiding in us, with a few nudges here and there to get him to open up further.

Just as effective is his decision to use clips from Fox’s filmography to flesh out and comment on the 61-year-old actor’s tale. With masterful editing from Michael Harte , Guggenheim seamlessly glides between Fox’s breakthrough roles in the sitcom “Family Ties” and the blockbuster “ Back to the Future ,” as well as subsequent performances in “Teen Wolf,” “ Bright Lights, Big City ,” “ Casualties of War ,” “ Doc Hollywood ” and more.

Reenactments provide lively and essential connective tissue, and Fox’s entertaining narration from his books ties it all together. One spectacular sequence details how Fox simultaneously shot “Family Ties” by day and “Back to the Future” by night, with drivers rushing him from place to place, waking him up, brewing his coffee, and ensuring he has his scripts. (And we learn how Eric Stoltz was originally cast in the iconic role of Marty McFly, and even shot much of the film before Fox was hired to replace him. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in that puffy vest and jeans, bantering about the flux capacitor with Christopher Lloyd .)

The energy in “Still” is often infectious, and it reflects how on-the-go Fox has been since his childhood in Canada. Archival photos from hockey teams and the drama club reveal how much smaller he was than the other kids (“I was just a little elf,” he recalls), a quality that would help him play younger characters with the wisdom of age. He’s honest about both his extreme poverty starting in Hollywood as well as the arrogance that overcame him once he made it big. In one clever parallel, Guggenheim depicts Fox approaching a newsstand in the San Fernando Valley at the height of his fame, when his adorable, smiling face graced every magazine cover from People to TV Guide to Teen Beat ; he recreates this image in a scene set in 1998, once Fox has revealed his Parkinson’s diagnosis, and he’s back on all the magazine covers for a sadder reason.

In between, he learned to hide the tremors on set for seven years. No one noticed it then, but we can see it now, looking back at his TV and film work. Fox is candid about the trickery he employed to create the guise of normalcy, often holding a pen or a prop in his left hand and fiddling with it or incorporating a little bob or weave into a punch line to mask his unsteadiness. That he felt the need to go to such lengths for personal and professional survival is retroactively heartbreaking. And then there’s his drinking to numb the pain, which Fox has talked about for many years.

This could have been mawkish—an “eat your vegetables” movie about an inspirational figure overcoming adversity. But keeping Fox’s self-effacing, no-nonsense voice as a through-line consistently buoys “Still.” So does a lively soundtrack that ranges from INXS to the Beastie Boys to Kenny Loggins. (The use of “ This Is It ” as Fox and his dad drive to Los Angeles with dreams of stardom is a bit on the nose, however.) There are life lessons here to be learned and shared, for sure. But the film moves with such thrilling pacing it feels more like a celebration.

The irony, of course, is that a disease that is robbing Fox of the ability to control his body has also allowed him to achieve stillness in his mind. And the quiet moments of introspection he now enjoys speak louder than any crowd-pleasing laugh line on a soundstage.

Now playing in theaters and available on Apple TV+. 

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Review: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ has Michael Keaton and everything going for it, except the funny

Revisit the 1988 “Beetlejuice” if you haven’t lately. It’s stranger, jankier, funnier and try-anything-er than you may recall. As the freelance bio-exorcist Betelgeuse, aka Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton delivered wondrous combinations of subtle vocal throwaways and outlandish visual invention as both participant and heckler in his own paranormal comedy. Director Tim Burton, hot off “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” reportedly considered casting Sammy Davis Jr. in the role, among others. But it was kismet for Keaton, and for Winona Ryder as the grieving, healing Lydia Deetz, as well as a crack supporting ensemble seemingly assembled in some sort of dream.

There’s a lot more Keaton in the 36-years-later reboot “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which pays off in terms of a great and versatile star’s screen time. But holy cats, is this movie disappointing! I mean really not good enough! Some people, Burton fans many of them, slag off Burton projects like the live-action “Dumbo” or the feature “Dark Shadows.” While many disagree, given the wide but generally admiring critical response to “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in its world premiere last week at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, this one, for me, ranks right down there with “Dumbo.” It is not enough to make a swole version of the first “Beetlejuice,” at somewhere around 14 times the original’s $15 million product budget. With the effects upgrades and joyless bombast taking over, did the comedy ever have a chance?

Now the mother of teenage Astrid (Jenna Ortega), ghost-friendly Lydia hosts a successful reality/talk show produced by her smarmy fiancee (Justin Theroux). The show is a haunted-house affair, featuring standoffs between supernatural and super-normal inhabitants of the same domiciles, with Lydia acting as “psychic mediator.” The tragic death of Lydia’s father leaves Astrid bereft and also skeptical: If mom’s TV shtick is genuine, why can’t she make afterlife contact with Astrid’s grandfather?

When Beetlejuice enters the story, he’s still smitten with Lydia. Beyond that, his ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci), determined to exact revenge on her dirty dog of a former husband, goes about sucking the souls out of humans who get in her way. There’s more to the screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, including Astrid meeting a sweet fellow outsider (Arthur Conti), and Willem Dafoe’s deceased but lively detective — an actor who played a detective when he was alive, so why stop now?

Burton’s design teams remain among the finest commercial film creatives working, and there are some visual ideas and images in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” that hit that elusive sweet spot between the macabre and the wittily macabre only a Burton movie can manage. When Keaton sails into a flashback reverie about how he and Delores met and then broke up, it’s depicted in the operatically intense style of an Italian gallo horror melodrama. Elsewhere we get bits of the cramped “Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” German expressionism in the scenic design, which is amusing. More clinically impressive than amusing: the sight of Bellucci’s formerly dismembered Delores reattaching her own limbs with a staple gun.

What’s missing is not simply surprise, or the pleasurable shock of a new kind of ghost comedy. It’s the near-complete absence of verbal wit, all the more frustrating since Keaton is ready to play, and he’s hardly alone. The legendarily gifted Catherine O’Hara returns as Lydia’s stepmother Delia, as haughty as ever. But we keep waiting for the jokes to land — to do their job, in other words. Without a fresh take on familiar material, director Burton makes do with his own detours and let’s-try-this-for-a-while segments, including a torturous musical sequence backed by the song “MacArthur Park” that goes on approximately forever. Then there’s a “Soul Train” riff, which feels way, way off, taste-wise and big-ending-dance-party wise.

It can’t hold a candle, in other words, to the happy ending of the first “Beetlejuice,” which found human and otherworld cohabitants of the same old house on the hill living in peace and harmony, with Harry Belafonte’s rendition of the Calypso classic “Jump in the Line” providing the backbeat. I’m sure this sequel will do well enough. But it’s a helluva comedown, and seeing “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in a huge opening-night crowd at the Venice festival, I didn’t hear much in the way of actual laughter, proving that a couple of hundred million can buy you almost anything. Almost.

'BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE'

1.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use)

Running time: 1:44

How to watch: In theaters Sept. 6

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review: A fun and nostalgic sequel that lacks depth

It's as delightfully silly as you were hoping.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could never aspire to replicate the innovative and unique spectacle that was Beetlejuice back in 1988, but it sure captures its deliciously eccentric sense of fun.

In the last few years, legacy sequels have been a mixed bag of smart reimaginings ( Twisters ), disappointing nostalgia-driven stories ( Ghostbusters: Afterlife ) and awful cash-grabbing projects ( The Exorcist: Believer ).

Beetlejuice 2 falls somewhere in the middle of those categorisations – Tim Burton's sequel makes sensible use of the fan-service card while introducing some exciting new elements, an expansion of its supernatural universe and a showstopping musical number.

Most importantly, the movie captures the crazed spirit of the original, even if not all of its good ideas come to fruition.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set over three decades after the events of the first movie, when three generations of Deetz women are forced to return to their family home in Winter River after the death of Richard Deetz.

Staying faithful to her signature gothic style and spiked fringe, Lydia ( Winona Ryder ) is now the presenter of a supernatural TV show called Ghost Town , capitalising on her ability to see dead people.

Far from the rebel and fiercely smart teenager we met in the first movie, this Lydia is too haunted by her nightmarish gift and inner demons to realise she's being manipulated and exploited by her boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux).

That's one of the reasons why her daughter Astrid ( Wednesday star Jenna Ortega ) can't seem to stand her. You can always count on an angry teenage girl to redirect her frustrations towards her mother and prey on her weaknesses.

When Lydia's mother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) informs her of her father's passing, the three women travel to Winter River to bury him and sell their house for good.

However, with the foul-mouthed yet charismatic demon Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) still around and some nasty ghosts trying to seduce their way into the land of the living, the Deetz family is once again trapped between two worlds that are bleeding into each other.

It's a joy to go back to the oddly shaped corridors and the administrative madness of Neitherworld, a realm where the deceased grab a number and wait their turn to find out what to do with the rest of their afterlife. The sequel explores more areas of this underworld, like the unending passport control lines and the disco-inspired train system that takes souls to the Great Beyond.

The leader of the Neitherworld police, Wolf Jackson ( Willem Dafoe ), is an absolute standout in the movie, a newcomer that feels right at home. A dead Hollywood actor who used to star in noir movies, he has now adopted that kick-ass detective character full-time, although he often reminds himself to "keep it real".

The movie's wacky visual style, which thankfully avoids today's usual blockbuster CGI look to include plenty of practical effects and stop-motion animation, syncs perfectly with the story's sense of humour and quirky imagination.

Same goes for the music. Along with Danny Elfman's playful score, the movie includes glorious needle drops, with hits ranging from the Bee-Gees' 'Tragedy' to Richard Max's 'Wherever You Go, Whatever You Do'.

There is also a callback to Harry Belafonte's 'Banana Boat (Day-O)' during Richard's funeral, which was part of a key scene in the original movie. Instead of just replicating it, the sequel finds its own memorable lip-sync moment towards the ending of the movie with a hilarious and deeply entertaining rendition of 'MacArthur Park'.

Scenes like that show Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had the potential to be what fans wanted, but it's not all perfect.

Beetlejuice's creepy ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci), whose backstory is briefly told in a phenomenal Mario Bava-inspired flashback spoken in Italian, doesn't reach her full potential. She's a fascinating character able to suck the souls of the deceased and end their existence, but her role as the baddie of the story never feels fully realised.

It's a common problem in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – when it's one step away from exploring an interesting idea, it simply backs down and moves on, seemingly incapable of processing a story with way too many plot points.

Lydia's medicating herself at the start of the movie after years of therapy, Rory's toxic manipulation of Lydia's traumas, the intricacies of a troubled relationship between a mother and a teenage daughter... Perhaps better writers would have found meaningful juice in those topics, but they're just threads that they pull only to abandon almost instantly.

It's particularly noticeable (and disappointing) when it affects Lydia and Astrid's relationship, since that is ultimately the heart of the story.

Despite the story having some issues, Tim Burton does successfully reclaim his much-celebrated style.

Given his highly-criticised run of terrible Disney live action remakes ( Alice in Wonderland , Dumbo ) and movies that didn't stick the landing ( Dark Shadows , Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children ), it's no wonder he was eager to revisit his first truly Burtonian movie in the hopes of regaining some of his lost magic.

At times, the movie even feels like a tribute to himself, with apparent winks to his past work; Astrid's bike ride echoes Pee-wee's Big Adventure , Delores is rebuilt stapling pieces like Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas , while one of her hands runs around the floor like Hand from Wednesday.

Of course, there's also the nostalgia that he inherently taps into by bringing Beetlejuice back to the big screen.

Burton seems to take a step in the right direction here, but he does so by reusing one his most iconic characters, therefore missing some of the vital aspects that made his previous work so special.

His movies have so often been original, refreshing and capable of conjuring icons from scratch. Can he do that again, or simply live off past glories?

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is released in cinemas on September 6.

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Deputy Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over seven years, mostly for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas . 

Her work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema in the UK. 

She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service .    During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world, and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London.     Now based in the UK, Mireia joined Digital Spy in June 2023 as Deputy Movies Editor. 

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Film review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

The ’Juice is loose! Tim Burton’s undead anti-hero returns alongside Jenna Ortega in long-awaited Beetlejuice sequel…

Though not his first movie, it was 1988’s Beetlejuice that properly introduced the idea of Tim Burton to the world. Flipping the haunted house notion on its head, its tale of a recently-deceased couple trying to keep new living occupants from their house with the help of a demonic ‘bio-exorcist’, the almost-titular Betelgeuse, allowed the director’s imagination to run riot. Behold, it declared, Hollywood's greatest new oddball.

Beetlejuice was an explosion of comic-book gothic grandeur, macabre weirdness, camp pomp, twisted visual gags and over-vivid colour that created the perfect cinematic world for its story. Aided by knockout performances from Michael Keaton as the sleazy, smooth-drawling leading undead scumbag, and Winona Ryder as the sassy teen who gets the better of him, plus a creepy, kooky score by Danny Elfman that did a similar job for him as the movie did for Tim, it made icons of both the movie and its director.

Talk has long persisted of a follow-up. Now it has belatedly but inevitably arrived, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is kind of Beetlejuice: The Next Generation. Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz is all grown up, a TV host with a ghost show of her own. She’s also got a daughter, Astrid (an excellently moody and dry-humoured Jenna Ortega), not a fan of her mother’s strange behaviour and talk of ghosts to the point it’s created a rift. Lydia’s own mother Delia (Catherine O’Hara), meanwhile, is recently widowed, following the death of her husband Charles, who’s been bitten in half by a shark.

The three return to the family mansion, along with Lydia’s clearly terrible and manipulative partner, Rory. Her sightings of Beetlejuice – all in her head, she thinks – get worse, until he’s accidentally summoned again. As things unfurl for the three generations of Deetz women, they begrudgingly realise they need his help to sort things out.

Not that he hasn’t got problems of his own – namely his ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci), part of a witch cult who’s got her head together 600 years after being chopped up by her husband (in self-defence), and has returned as a soul-sucking ghoul out for revenge.

It’s very funny and very surreal, and the updates largely work. Beetlejuice’s business in Purgatory has grown into a morbid call centre, while the bureaucracy of being dead has become even more of a drag. Jenna Ortega fits into things brilliantly, wearing the shoes of her mother in the original while making the new role entirely hers.

Monica Bellucci is brilliant, a born scream queen playing it with a cold, straight bat in an underworld of mayhem, the sort of terrifying, deadly beauty that could scare even Beetlejuice. Meanwhile, there's an outrageously hammy turn by Willem Dafoe as hard-boiled TV cop Wolf Jackson, killed doing his own stunts and now trying to clean up the afterlife.

He himself has become an even seedier but somehow more likeable sandworm-oil salesman than in the original. Like then, Michael Keaton is having a whale of a time playing the green-haired goon, with a sack of shitty jokes and noisy shtick.

Plot-wise, you’ll get more out of it if you’re au fait with the original, but the different strands of the story stand out enough on their own: Lydia having to re-engage with Beetlejuice and her trauma; Astrid having a hell of a time realising everything she dislikes about her mother is both real and dangerous, and that boys should not be trusted; Delia extrovertly dealing with her grief for her husband; Beetlejuice trying to stay one step ahead of the furious Delores. Even the awkward stumbling block of original Charles Deetz actor Jeffrey Jones being convicted of child sex offences in 2003 is nimbly dealt with by killing his character, and having his soul represented by a body with no head.

It could do with taking a bit longer to tie everything up at the end, particularly Astrid’s doomed romance storyline, and some have found the amount of look-backs and references distracting. But that’s half the point here.

Either way, the return of Beetlejuice is as sharp, funny, gross, oddly touching and deeply bizarre as you’d want it to be, and as it needs to be. He was bound to come back. Thank The Devil he’s made the wait worthwhile.

Verdict: 4/5

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is released on September 6 via Warner Bros.

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BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE’s Ghost With the Most Carries an Entertaining Mixed Bag

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is not going to “ruin” anyone’s childhood. It’s just not going to make anyone’s either. Tim Burton’s decades-in-the-making sequel is a mixed bag. It has some inspired moments and fantastic performances. But it also has way too many characters, more plot than it knows what to do with, and pacing issues. The result is an entertaining mess that ultimately leans more “entertaining” than “mess” because, even though it has a sentimental side that is oddly out of place, it’s still fundamentally a Beetlejuice movie.

If you love seeing dead people stuck in an eternal state of discomfort, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice delivers the goods. The very present, much-visited afterlife is full of recently deceased who met their end in increasingly hilarious ways. It’s packed with wonderfully “random” aspects that make it a wildly interesting place to revisit. And while it’s full of Easter eggs and nods to its predecessor, they rarely feel forced or corny.

It’s also where you’ll find a character we were led to believe would not be in the film at all. Well, they’re sort of in the movie. What do I mean? Sorry to be so cryptic , but it could be any number of original characters, so I won’t spoil who. I’ll only say their “inclusion” greatly surprised me and how the film uses them is going to lead to a lot of “discourse.”

As for the characters we knew we were returning, two do more than standout. They carry the movie. The first is Michael Keaton. He slips back into his bio-exorcist pinstripes so seamlessly it’s like he never took them off. If, like me, you hold the original film sacred, he’s everything you want from the Ghost with the Most. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t overuse him, nor does it misuse him. He is a little different, though. He’s a lot less sinister, but that totally works because the movie shows how his previous encounter with Lydia changed him. It’s one of the film’s smartest evolutions.

The other is Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz, the other original star who steals every single scene she’s in. Every single one. With age—and success—Delia has morphed into her best self, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less absurd or hilarious. The movie never suffers from any real dead spots because O’Hara is always around to keep you laughing.

Newcomer Jenna Ortega doesn’t get as many chances to be funny as her counterparts, but she’s excellent as Lydia’s skeptic daughter Astrid. She’s still mourning her dad’s death, and in a movie full of (maybe too much) ridiculousness, she adds a grounding element that helps it keep a good balance. Astrid’s story is also responsible for adding two things that are big parts of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice even though they were, at most, minor elements of the original film. This sequel has real heart and sentimentality.

How you feel about that will very much influence how much you like or dislike the movie. It didn’t really work for me, for the same reason it hasn’t in the new Ghostbusters movies, another ’80s franchise whose modern entries have also leaned into pulling in your heartstrings. The good news is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ‘s sentimentality isn’t nearly as cloying or annoying as Ghostbusters . That’s likely that because unlike its spectral counterpart, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice never forgets that it is a comedy first and foremost.

What it does forget is pacing and how to develop plots, both main and sub. The movie’s story feels rushed, as does its actual pacing. There’s too much going on and everything happens way too quickly. That’s all a byproduct of way, way, way too much plot. Whereas the original film is more about experiencing a fascinating world with a story loosely holding it together, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice puts its plot front and center. Then it adds even more plot to the wings until it overflows out the windows.

The main plot is essentially squeezed into the last hour of the movie. Meanwhile its B-plots are so underdeveloped, they’re more like D-plots. Two characters, Willem Defoe’s Wolf Jackson and Monica Bellucci’s Delores, add almost nothing to the film. In fact, each could be cut entirely without issue. That would actually make it a stronger movie because it would feel more focused. There are simply too many characters without enough time to do anything with them. Belluci’s Dolores especially feels like they forgot to include 75% of her scenes, which makes no sense considering she’s billed as the primary antagonist.

Two characters the movie doesn’t forget about are Justin Theroux’s Rory and Winona Ryder’s Lydia. Rory is annoying and sleazy, but as much as I love Theroux, he’s essentially too good in the part because I found Rory really annoying in a bad way. (Whereas I think the original film’s Otho is annoying in a good way.)

As for Ryder, her Lydia has undergone the worst evolution of the original cast. Burton made his most interesting, complex character…well…boring. At one point another character actually asks Lydia to rediscover that “annoying goth” teenage girl she’d once been, and in that moment it feels like everything she’s done so far is prelude to who she’ll become now. Only she never does. She never comes close to offering up anything as dynamic or layered as teenage Lydia.

It’s very frustrating, in large part because Lydia’s current life is incredibly interesting! The movie simply fails to fully explore why, saddling Ryder with an underwritten part.

Like I said, it’s a mixed bag. But not all mixed bags are equal, and I walked out of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice happier with the good parts than I was upset by the bad ones. The good aspects—notably the afterlife sequences, humor, Beetlejuice, and Delia—are really freaking good. The bad aspects—too much plot, too many characters, a weird sentimentality, poor pacing—aren’t bad enough to make toruin the film. They’re just bad enough to keep it from being really good.

The result is that, unlike its still perfect namesake, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is okay okay.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist who gladly shares a name with Michael Keaton. You can follow him on  Twitter  and  Bluesky at @burgermike . And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

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‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ review: A nostalgic, but unneccessary trip back to Tim Burton’s version of the afterlife

• Updated: Sep. 04, 2024, 12:32 p.m.
• | Published: Sep. 04, 2024, 11:05 a.m.

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Michael Keaton in a scene from "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP) AP

• Joey Morona, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In 1988, Tim Burton and Michael Keaton captured lightning in a bottle with “Beetlejuice.” The film was an inventive, quirky and macabre carnival ride into the afterlife powered by a maniacal performance by Keaton.

Enter “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” into the chat, a sequel that sparks the requisite dose of nostalgia, reminding us of the singular talents of its director and star while also revealing that the original — and our feelings about it — were very much products of their time.

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