Intended to tie a bow around the Bad era, Moonwalker is essentially a film-length collection of short-form music videos and longer featurettes. The most present "plot" is in the nearly-hourlong film for "Smooth Criminal," the seventh and final U.S. single from Bad (and its sixth Top 10). In it, Jackson acts as a protector to a trio of plucky kids (one of whom is Sean Lennon, John and Yoko's son) from a group of ruthless gangsters, led by a delightfully manic Joe Pesci (a full three years before his Oscar win for Goodfellas). Car chases abound, Michael leads an elaborate Fosse/Minnelli-esque dance number to "Smooth Criminal" (complete with his newest choreographed trick, the anti-gravity lean) and...well, let's just say you haven't lived until you've seen MJ turn into a robot spaceship.
A fully-remastered film would be enough of a treat for this writer. Imagine hearing the songs of Bad (many in alternate edits or some discrete mixes) in 5.1, with stunning picture quality to boot. (The segments of Moonwalker that have been released on DVD are of varying quality; "Speed Demon," as seen on
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I had kind of thought this deserved to at least start out as being only available on some sort of "Bad" re-release. Since "Bad 25" just happened it will probably be years before anything like that happens. BUT I think "Bad 25" was released the way it should have been so don't get me wrong. Of course the short version of "Smooth Criminal" IS in the film as well...in the credits. I kind of like that the full screen version can only be found elsewhere on other compilations such as "The Number Ones" though so I actually hope it is not on a re-release of "Moonwalker" to be honest. 2ff7e9595c
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