Grade: A-
Rocketman, director Dexter Fletcher’s Elton John biopic, is much more than your standard by-the-numbers biopic which systematically ticks off all the usual boxes. It is a hypnotic spectacle to behold. Characters break into song and dance on a whim, to exciting renditions of Elton John’s songs from all over his career, with sparklingly memorable choreography and imagery. And these songs do come from any conceivable period. In a scene taking place in the mid-late 1950s, young Elton and his family give us a touching rendition of I Want Love, a song released in 2001. You can’t compare this to Bohemian Rhapsody. The storytelling style with its “music videos” are akin to Moulin Rouge and Across the Universe, and it has an unexpected dark, sad edge to it, like La La Land. And one day, future films will be compared to Rocketman.
Elton himself told the actor who plays him in the movie not to get hung up on doing an impression or shallowly nailing down every mannerism and tic. Just find your own character and play it true, he essentially said. It’s a wise and welcome choice. As Elton John, I never felt like Taron Egerton stooped to a shallow SNL type parody. He was made up to resemble Elton just enough that we’d remember it was him, but it still felt like an authentic character and performance. Slavish attention to detail is eschewed in favor of what will best serve this particular glimpse into Elton’s life. I caught something that I bet you didn’t. Hercules – one of my favorite early deep cuts of his – is used in a montage, but it’s in a lower key here. F instead of G. I wondered why, until it segued perfectly into Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, which is in F. A lesser film would likely have stuck to historical accuracy and kept it in G.
Disappointingly, Rocketman decides to end in the late 80s or very early 90s, when he got sober. That’s a lot of interesting material not being covered here. The Lion King, writing for Broadway musicals, marrying David Furnish, reuniting with his brown dirt cowboy Bernie Taupin for a string of excellent albums starting in 2001, setting the record for most performances at Madison Square Garden until Billy Joel surpassed his number a couple years ago, etc. Still, it’s impossible for me not to admire the movie and story they did make. Not all factually accurate? Probably. Anachronistic? Definitely. It is also exhausting and moving. I want to prepare you for that. It will tear your heart out and leave you shaken, but it is uplifting in its delightfully quirky way. Rock it, man.
Grade: A-
Film Reviews by Mark 
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