"Leaving Neverland" Review: Michael Jackson’s Legacy Destroyed With This Crucial And Emotional Movie

Title: Leaving Neverland
Director: Dan Reed

Back in 2014, the movie An Open Secret by Amy Berg didn’t get to be released because it mentioned about the child abuse history of director Bryan Singer. Meanwhile, Bryan Singer has produced the fourth part of X-Men movie and Bohemian Rhapsody which won multiple Oscar awards. So it took everyone by surprise that a movie containing the same kind of risky information like Leaving Neverland can make it to the theatres.

Check out the trailer of Leaving Neverland here:

Both An Open Secret and Leaving Neverland claimed to have the proof and the first-person testimony that could end all the debates about the main subject of the movie. And of course, the two movies both got so much attention from the public.

An Open Secret could definitely have had an enormous impact on the industry if it hadn’t been banned. If so, Bryan Singer would not become the director of Rhapsody, and the $40 million payment wouldn’t be in his bank account by now. But it’s just our imagination.

However, we still can wait to see how Leaving Neverland will affect Michael Jackson’s bequests. Being the highest-earning dead artist in the world, MJ definitely has more supporter than Singer. His fans are very loyal and supportive; they still stayed after many times had been publicly trialed.

Leaving Neverland is aired on HBO and divided in two part, each of which lasts for two hours. The movie is not an accusation or a report of the case. It’s just a one-sided version of the story told from the perspective of two men, Wade Robson and Jimmy Savechuck, who claim they were sexually abused as children by Michael Jackson.

Robson, who used to testify to defend Jackson at his trials, has known Jackson since he was 7 and he was a huge fan of him. His walls were covered with MJ’s posters and he even learned all of his famous dance moves. Jimmy Savechuck, after seeing Robson share his story, was inspired and decided to tell his own. However, Robson and Savechuck were doubted by the public. Many have raised the question of why they had to wait until later to tell the truths as if they had some other motives.

Leaving Neverland is not a feel-good movie; it’s not easy to watch. You’ll have to deal with your emotion while watching the two men describe in details what happened to them. Although the film was made in a rather basic way, just like any other documentary, with the main characters being framed in close-ups and talking heads interspersed with archive footage, once you started watching it, you cannot stop. No matter how you were familiar with Michael Jackson’s history, the calm and sensible manner of the movie made it more believable, as well as the honesty of Savechuck and Robson.

While watching the stories from the 1980s and 1990s unfolded, many still couldn’t understand how Michael Jackson convinced the world that there’s no problem in inviting children to his house and sleep together with him.

Michael Jackson also had his dark sides. He decided to use his money and power to deal with the problematic relationship he had with his father, which was well documented.

However, Leaving Neverland did not attack Jackson; the movie passively criticized the mothers of Savechuck and Robson. They still let their children hanging out alone with Jackson even though he was accused of child abuse by many others.

After all, the most reasonable statement of the movie may come from a TMZ staff. This person said,