A "Smooth Criminal" Retrospective

There are many many many reasons to watch this video. First of all, it's like a dance narrative, although the plot is cloudy. Michael Jackson plays some sort of mobster/speakeasy boss, and there's tons of easy ladies nearby and also random bouts of aggression. It's like what a very effiminate man would imagine as a masculinity play. For example, MJ's buttering up two fine ladies and a large man appears behind him with a glittering knife, and the ladies get all freaked out but Michael just blows him through a brick wall without even turning around. That's unchecked fantasy, people. Also, ragamuffin orphans are peering through the barred windows, talking about how cool Michael's moves are. It's kind of too bad that every Michael Jackson video reads like a warning sign.

It's not the best song, and the wierd sound quality of the grunts inserted over it makes it worse. But I've always remembered this video as being legendary because I owned a Nintendo game based off it. Michael would jump/dance-kick, throw his white hat, lean impossibly far, and shoot his arm up in the air all the way to victory. I'm surprised that I can't find this game on a Google search, which makes me think this was all a legend I created in my Michael Jackson-obsessed youth. But I did find this - a Flash animation which features MJ in every other Nintendo game you can think of.