“Michael” and the Tension of Lacking Tension
It is not hard to make a musical biopic that pleases audiences and draws a profit. Michael is no exception.

Inside Cama Hospital, one of the sites targeted during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, nurses, ward boys, cleaners, lift operators, security personnel, and administrative workers keep 400 people alive while armed assailants struck the city around them.
It is not hard to make a musical biopic that pleases audiences and draws a profit. Michael is no exception.
The venn diagram of pop feminism and white-centered feminism is a circle. Acknowledging that is not a crime nor a diminishing of 'Barbie', Director Gerwig, or feminism in general.
“I’m always interested in exploring female fantasy, and the sexy witch is a loaded archetype that is simultaneously about men’s fears and fantasies about women, and women’s feelings of empowerment and agency. So whereas we are used to seeing the sexy witch or the femme fatale from the outside, I wanted to explore her from the inside.” - Anna Biller, on why she made The Love Witch
A refreshing twist is that all the kids’ powers are…kind of useless. There’s a kid who can only move in slow motion, a kid who has every power in the world but can only use them randomly, and our main character Missy who has no powers at all. The thesis of the film seems to be that it doesn’t matter what kind of powers you have, its the way you use them, which is good for the warm and fuzzies.
Ever since the mid-’90s, the Mortal Kombat game franchise has seen multiple attempts to make it on the big screen, or at least adapted into other media.