Dan Reed, director of the HBO documentary "Leaving Neverland," criticized Jaafar Jackson's portrayal of Michael Jackson in the new biopic and said the film omits important controversies surrounding the singer.

Reed said the film's early portrayal of Michael worked, but he was disappointed by the later performance. "The first part of Michael as a child, I could kind of buy that," Reed explained to Variety, before adding his criticism. "But as soon as we go to the adult Jackson, played by his nephew Jaafar, that burst my bubble. I thought, he's a great dancer, but his performance is very wooden, and one of the reasons for that is he didn't have much of a script to work with."

Reed also argued the film offers little insight into Jackson's character. He said the movie turns the singer into a performance figure rather than a complex person.

"He becomes this waxwork who performs these jukebox songs, but there's zero insight into what makes Jackson tick. He's this asexual plastic action doll of a figure in the film. And of course, the issue of his relationship with children is completely distorted by the fact that they portray him as an eccentric, overgrown child, which we know is not the full story," he claimed.

Reed accused Jackson's family and the filmmakers of protecting the superstar's legacy. "Why are they dancing around this?" Reed asked, before asserting that widely reported behavior should not be ignored.

"It's well-known that Jackson spent a long time with small-boy companions, including taking them into his bed at night and locking the door, which is undisputed – and that alone, if someone made a claim, is probably enough to convict him in a court of child sexual abuse – but with Jackson, none of this stuff seems to matter," he added.

Radar Online reported that Reed said the film grants Jackson near-mythic status while overlooking human complexity.

"Attributes of a deity," he said, "but there was a human Jackson, and he was what we know he was. As a documentary filmmaker, I was focused on telling Wade and James' story – not Jackson's story."

Director Antoine Fuqua responded to questions about the omissions by saying, "Sometimes people do nasty things for money." Reed replied to Fuqua's comment with another direct critique.

"Someone who's made tens of millions pushing a false narrative around a man who's a pedophile, that's a nasty thing," Reed fumed in his interview. "Mr. Fuqua has described his own actions while attempting to smear the protagonists of my documentary, and that makes me laugh."

Colman Domingo, who plays Joe Jackson in the film, defended its scope, saying, "We center it on the makings of Michael, so it's an intimate portrait of who Michael is," and suggested the allegations could be addressed in a sequel.

The biopic grossed $219 million globally in its opening weekend, with nearly $100 million from North America.

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Michael Jackson