Questlove Says ‘Michael’ Biopic ‘Captured the Soul’ of Jackson, But He Had a Few Timeline Quibbles

Questlove got an early look at the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic. As a diehard fan of the King of Pop, the Roots drummer was initially hesitant going into Michael, but ended up enjoying how MJ was humanized throughout Antoine Fuqua’s film.

“Honestly? I was hesitant. I’m emotionally invested, and I was holding my breath. But this project does the impossible: it strips away the spectacle and shows us the person,” Questlove wrote to Instagram on Monday night (April 20). “For the first time, we aren’t looking at the ‘THE KING’—we’re looking at a human being.”

The Oscar winner began intensely dissecting the film while picking apart timeline errors when it came to MJ’s decorated career, but eventually, as Questlove put it, he placed his “weapons down” because of how Michael captured Jackson’s soul.

“It’s a side of him a lot of us seemed to forget after 1984. I’ll admit, as a diehard, I started out taking notes: ‘Wrong year,’ ‘Song wasn’t out yet,’ ‘He didn’t wear that jacket until…’ But I eventually put my weapons down,” he wrote. “Why? Because they captured the SOUL of it all & gave him back his humanity. If this is the final word on his legacy, showing his humanity was more important to me than any technical faux pas.”

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, Michael hits theaters in the U.S. on Friday (April 24). The thought-provoking biopic follows the King of Pop from his days in Jackson 5 through the Bad album era, which topped the Billboard 200 in 1987.

MJ is played by his nephew, Jaafar Jackson, while the rest of the cast is rounded out by Kat Graham (Diana Ross), Miles Teller (John Branca), Colman Domingo (Joe Jackson), Nia Long (Katherine Jackson) and Kendrick Sampson (Quincy Jones).

Perhaps Questlove’s most substantial cosign of Michael is that he’s planning to go to the theater “again and again” to see the buzzy biopic.

“This film shows that the true path isn’t just about grinding; it’s about KNOWING that you know. It’s about knowing that you know. Channeling that feeling into reality. It’s the perfect setup for what’s coming in the Earth, Wind & Fire doc—a shift from the ‘struggle’ to the ‘manifestation.’ I’m going back to see it again. And again,” he concluded.