Hollywood critics just dropped the mask, and the stench of hypocrisy is unbearable. Michael Jackson’s long-awaited biopic MICHAEL opened to a brutal 27% on Rotten Tomatoes based on early reviews — and the usual suspects are already sharpening their knives over “estate involvement” and “sanitized storytelling.”
Sound familiar? Because when Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis dropped with heavy input from the Presley estate and hit a cozy 77%, those same critics were practically handing out standing ovations. The double standard isn’t subtle. It’s glaring. And it’s exactly why more and more people are tuning critics out for good.
Let’s rip the bandage off with the cold numbers that expose everything:
- Elvis (2022): 77% Tomatometer, glowing reviews praising its “bold” take — even though the family and estate opened the vaults and shaped the narrative.
- Michael (2026): 27% and sinking fast after just 41 reviews. Suddenly, “family approval” is a cardinal sin, and the film is dismissed as glossy fan service.
The tone is what really burns. Reviewers who bent over backward to celebrate Elvis as “complex” and “daring” are now clutching pearls because Michael Jackson’s estate — run by people who actually knew him — had creative say. One Black icon gets the kid-gloves treatment. The other? Immediate suspicion and shade.
This isn’t film criticism anymore. It’s selective outrage dressed up as journalism. The same industry that forgave Elvis’s well-documented demons and teenage-bride storyline suddenly demands unflinching “truth” from MJ’s story — while conveniently ignoring how many biopics (Bohemian Rhapsody included) played it safe and still got love.
Akhil Jackson nailed it on X: the hypocrisy is impossible to ignore. Critics aren’t losing relevance because audiences are “dumb.” They’re losing it because the bias is now cartoonishly obvious. Audiences will decide MICHAEL’s fate at the box office — not gatekeepers who’ve spent years proving they can’t be trusted. The game is rigged, the reviews are predictable, and the public is finally wise to it.
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