"Rocketman” Review
Rocketman is a biopic based on Elton John's life. Being a big budget Hollywood musical biopic like it, it naturally has its issues. In a typical one, you start the movie off before an important performance that holds significant meaning to its subject, flashback to their childhood, then it goes into how they were playing at some clubs, then it shows them getting a manager then touring then the drugs then some betrayal then they get their shit together then they play the big concert then a bunch of words fade into the screen with still images of the actual subject and end movie with one of their songs. It's an unfortunate cliche and this hits almost all of those beats with one big subversion near the beginning that echoes throughout the rest of the film. Then the first musical sequence happens. And I thought: holy fuck, it's a musical... I think I love this.
As someone who has little to no interest in Elton John's music and know basically nothing about this career and life, I'm happy to say that Rocketman is a great movie and is destined to become a classic in the musical biopic genre. It stars Taron Egerton who gives equal parts vulnerability and bombasticism (not a word, I know) to one of pop music's biggest icons. He also a really good singer! Jamie Bell portrays Bernie Taupin, spectacle and music aside, if the relationship and chemistry between these two men didn't work, the whole movie would've fallen apart. Luckily everything about them does work, very well actually. One big issue I had with some of the characters were that Elton's parents were cartoonishly cold but clearly realism is not what the movie is aiming for here so I'm letting that slide.
Big kudos goes to the choreography and staging of some of these musical numbers. They're romantic surrealist in nature and always remained focused on the feels. I've never felt so emotionally invested in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in my life than I was by the time the credits rolled. I was never quite clear as to what year or decade it was but do to it being a surrealist musical, it gets away with condensing years through its music, art direction and editing. Specifics and facts become irrelevant when the movie is clearly more interested in trying to make you feel everything at once and tries so hard to get you in the mindset of a person that lost control of his life for many years.
If you're looking for melodrama, beautiful costumes, grounded performances, with the spectacular and edge that most music biopics fail to bring, look no further. Rocketman is fantastic!
PS. did you know this movie is directed by the replacement director of Bohemian Rhapsody? That's pretty interesting.