While it won't win over any new fans, "This Is It" manages to be a fitting tribute to the King of Pop. In the film, we see Michael Jackson hard at work as he prepared for his 50 show series in London, which was canceled when Jackson died only months before the show premiered. After Jackson's death, director Kenny Ortega took all the archive footage from the practices and crafted it into this concert film.

The footage isn't always compelling and sometimes drags on, but "This Is It" held my interest thanks to awesome music, jaw-dropping visual effects and a brief glimpse into the mind of one of the greatest performers.

The visual effects were by far the highlight of the entire movie. What they had planned for this show was unbelievable. In one scene, a group of ten dancers are dressed up as futuristic soldiers and stand against a green screen. Next, special effects technicians created thousands of copies of their bodies so it looks like there's a never-ending army of dancers moving synchronized in a battlefield wasteland. When Ortega revealed these awe-inspiring visual effects, my imagination went wild at the thought of these elements being integrated into a stage show. Jackson's show had potential to have been one of the coolest of all time. The stuff they did was revolutionary.

Where the movie lets the audience down is actually when Michael Jackson performs in practice sessions. While it is always enjoyable to see the King of Pop perform on stage, since this is practice footage, Jackson definitely does not bring his A-game. Instead he chooses to save his voice and pay more attention to the instrumentals and making sure the rhythms are done correctly. Despite the fact that this footage is all Ortega had to work with, some of the scenes still could have been cut down or taken out entirely and the film still would have been interesting and worthwhile. The film runs like a dress rehearsal instead of a real performance, which is part of the nature of the film, but it lacks the excitement the actual performance promised. This footage simply lacked the spark that comes from a live show.

With that said, the movie does bring some insight into Jackson's personality. We really get to see a man who has immense respect for the people he works with and who is not satisfied with anything but the best. If he saw something that could be improved, he made sure to let people know. Many people have seen Jackson perform, but in this movie, we finally get to see the man behind the image.

Overall, there are very few flaws in this presentation. It could have been cut down a bit, but Kenny Ortega did a fantastic job at putting together a bunch of scrap footage and turning it into an exciting two-hour concert film.