Attack of the Smooth Criminal
Moonwalker (1989 Arcade Game)
Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker is a very goofy film. It’s an anthology project that was meant to coincide with the release and promotion of his album, Bad, from 1987, but then, due to studio delays, ended up coming out two years later. Despite originally being set for a theatrical release, it was eventually dumped on VHS and ignored by many. It did manage to sell modest numbers, and then became a regular feature on music channels for a while, but at this point the very fact that Moonwalker even exists has been forgotten by the general public. At a time when Michael Jackson was riding on top, and had a string of successful albums, when a Michael Jackson music video movie should have been an absolute smash (remember, his video for "Thriller" is even now considered one of the all-time greats) this films should have had greater impact than it did.
Hell, you can’t even buy a copy of Moonwalker on home video here in the States at this point. It never got an official DVD or Blu-Ray release in the U.S., and even the copies that were released overseas were censored due to a few minor, questionable moments (a kid gets slapped and, later, offered heroin). For those of us in the U.S., the only remnants of Moonwalker we can even see are a few of the music videos from within the movie published in a Michael Jackson music video collection, and, of course, the video games.
Jackson truly believed Bad was going to be his biggest album ever (Thriller was a stunning smash success and, until recently, was still the number one album of all time, only finally beaten by The Best of the Eagles, an album every dad owns and none of them can remember why). He went all out for it, creating a full media blitz to celebrate his next release. Thus why we have the movie, Moonwalker, which featured a soundtrack made up primarily of songs from Bad. The movie was supposed to be the first step, and then the video games, comics, and everything else he had planned would tie in and keep people interested for years to come. It was a plan for a magnum opus that never truly came to fruition. But hey, some of the games are pretty good.
The first of the fleet of games came from Sega and was released in Arcades in 1989. It was developed in coordination with Michael Jackson, based on his ideas and what he wanted to see in the work. Jackson was actually a big fan of video games, and Sega in particular, and he later worked with Sega on the Sonic 3 soundtrack (which was confirmed years later). Knowing his love for games, it’s interesting to see the active hand he took in getting this title made, and seeing it grow into one of the best parts of this franchise.
The game itself is based on the “Smooth Criminal” portion of Moonwalker (which was also released as its own, separate music video as well). In it, Michael has to fight through a series of stages, from city streets to warehouses, clubs, and even a graveyard, tracking down the evil Mr. Big (played in the movie by Joe Pesci) who has kidnapped various kids that Michael knows. He struts, punches, and magically waves his hands (quite literally), battling back street thugs, robots, and more as he works to bring down this drug dealer and his evil, dystopian, sci-fi army. Oh, and the music slaps.
The game is an odd, isometric, scrolling beat-em-up. You control Michael (or several Michaels wearing different colors, if you played with friends) as you fight your way through five moderately lengthy stages. The action is brisk and fluid, all backed by a selection of songs from Jackson’s catalog ("Bad", “Smooth Criminal”, “Billy Jean”, and “Beat It” included although, weirdly, not "Thriller" despite the game having a graveyard stage). The game can be beaten in about a half an hour, making it a decent length for a quarter muncher but not something that lingered for too long in the minds of players.
There were some things that helped make the game stand out, beyond the Jackson name and the chip-tune renditions of his music. For starters, Michael had punchy magical powers he could use. While you could punch your way through enemies, you also could charge your attack, unleashing bursts of blue flame from Michael’s hands, wrecking packs of enemies. There were also limited “dance magic” tokens which unleashed screen-clearing attacks on foes while Michael danced to smooth choreography. Finally, the end section of each stage featured Michael’s chimp coming out, giving him the power to transform into a robotic version of himself to fight against the stage’s boss, with lasers and rockets.
Why does he do all this? Well, because Michael had magical powers in the movie (the movie everyone was supposed to have seen), so he gets to use those powers here. At the end of the “Smooth Criminal” segment he turned into a giant robot (for… reasons) so he gets to do that here, too. And Michael had a chimp so, well, he gets to have a chimp in the game as well. It’s all very silly, yes, but it does apply in the context. And, honestly, while you’re playing through the game it doesn’t really seem odd or weird. It’s Michael Jackson going around, as a smooth criminal, beating up dudes. Once you accept the premise, nothing else seems truly strange.
With that said, the game is not perfect. For starters, because of the isometric layout of the game, hit boxes are pretty wonky. There will be attacks from enemies that you would think you should have dodged that will still, for some reason, hit you. Other times you’ll walk through hails of bullets but because of the way the hit boxes work you won’t get hit. Layering and boxes is very strange, all due to that isometric view, and it does mean that you can cheese a number of encounters if you know how the hit boxes work. But it also means you might struggle to avoid damage if you aren’t well versed in how the game plays.
And, let’s also be honest, the whole concept of the game has a darker undertone to it due to Michael’s later legal troubles. He was sued for maybe molesting a kid back in the day, and while there was a lot of he said/they said to the case there’s no doubt that it had an effect on the singer’s career after that point. Having him go around, saving kids that he knows and hangs out with only helps to remind people of that event in his life (which was never properly resolved but certainly sounded sketchy). It’s made the film age slightly more poorly than it might have otherwise.
But if you can just get into the game on its own merits it is fun. I remember seeing these machines back in the age of arcades, popping a few quarters in and having fun with it. It’s a unique style of beat-em-up with pretty graphics and smooth tunes. There really wasn’t anything to dislike about it back in the 1990s and, even now, I’m pleased to see how well the mechanics of the game hold up. Sega were really good at making arcade games and Moonwalker was another solid hit for them.
Say what you will about Michael Jackson, but he did have a vision for his Moonwalker release. You have to think that if his movie had actually gotten the intended release that was promised the video games might have performed better as well. Who knows what could have been then?