Rocketman (2019) review

What more can be said about Elton John that hasn’t been said already? For the past five decades, he’s been one of the most iconic figures of the entire music industry. With over 300 million records sold worldwide, he’s currently amongst the Top 5 best-selling artists of all-time with classic hits like “I’m Still Standing”, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, and “Tiny Dancer”, and of course, that’s just to name a few. Aside from that, he’s also provided the soundtracks for films like Disney Animation’s smash hit The Lion King and DreamWorks Animation’s The Road to El Dorado as well as the music for Tony Award-winning hits like Aida and Billy Elliot: The Musical. Outside of the world of music, he’s also played a huge role in combatting HIV/AIDS through the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised over $450 million since 1992. And now the story of his life is being brought to the big screen in a film that shares the name of his 1972 classic, Rocketman. John serves as an executive producer on this production while his husband David Furnish is one of the film’s main producers. Directorial duties, meanwhile, go to Dexter Fletcher, a long-time veteran of the film industry who started out as an actor but has recently transitioned into directing with films like Wild Bill and Eddie the Eagle. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t Fletcher’s first time working on a musical biopic as he came on board to finish last year’s Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody after Bryan Singer was fired two weeks prior to the end of filming. And while that film may have ultimately attracted a mixed critical reception, Rocketman has been fittingly praised as a lively musical fantasy all topped off by a phenomenal lead performance by Taron Egerton as the one and only ‘Rocket Man’.

In the county of Middlesex, England, a young Reginald Dwight (Matthew Illesley as a young boy, Kit Connor as a teenager) starts to develop a passion for music. And while he doesn’t get much encouragement from his emotionally distant mother Sheila Eileen (Bryce Dallas Howard) and his frequently absentee father Stanley (Steven Mackintosh) due to his time in the Royal Air Force, his loving grandmother Ivy (Gemma Jones) brings him to lessons at the Royal Academy of Music. Several years later, ‘Reggie’ (Taron Egerton) decides to embark on a solo career after spending several years with the R&B band Bluesology. He ends up changing his name to ‘Elton John’ and is signed to a deal with publisher Dick James (Stephen Graham) and manager Ray Williams (Charlie Rowe). He is then paired with songwriter Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) and the two begin to craft multiple hit tunes that turn Elton into one of the biggest recording artists in the world. During this time, he also strikes up a relationship with John Reid (Richard Madden), who not only becomes his new manager but also his lover as Elton begins to further embrace his identity as a homosexual. In the process, however, Elton starts to develop nasty drinking and drug habits that threaten to undermine his relationships with his friends and family.  

It’s been said that musical biopics tend to be one of the trickier film genres to truly get right. While there have been plenty of well-received musical biopics over the years like the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line and the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, many have noted that almost all these films tend to abide by the genre’s typical tropes. This includes everything from segments where the main characters fall on hard times (usually due to drug use) before going back to doing what they do best to montages that cover their rise to fame without really delving into how that came to be. By comparison, Rocketman goes about things a little bit differently. To be clear, it’s still very much a traditional musical biopic that goes through the genre’s usual story beats. However, director Dexter Fletcher manages to work around this by giving the film a fun visual style, and that’s very much apparent in its musical numbers. Some sequences see Elton performing alongside his younger self and in another, his performance of ‘Crocodile Rock’ is such a big hit that it briefly results in him and everyone in the audience levitating into the air. But most importantly, all of them do a great job in capturing Elton John’s signature flashy style, and this is then matched by the film’s excellent handling of his story. Compared to some of the other films of this genre, Rocketman is a lot more upfront about the various struggles that its subject has gone through, namely Elton’s drug and alcohol addictions. Plus, whereas Bohemian Rhapsody was widely criticized for its handling of the portrayal of Freddie Mercury’s sexuality, Rocketman is more open about Elton John’s, resulting in stronger emotional poignancy.

In a way, the stars were truly aligned when it came to Taron Egerton playing the role of Elton John. Not only did John have a notable cameo in Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn also happens to be one of this film’s producers), but Egerton performed a standout cover of “I’m Still Standing” in Illumination’s Sing. Thus, it goes without saying that Egerton does a fantastic job performing all of John’s classic songs. At the same time, he also does a great job when it comes to both replicating John’s extravagant stage presence and conveying the emotional turmoil that John sometimes found himself in. He also benefits greatly from the strong connections that he creates with his co-stars, namely Jamie Bell as John’s long-time partner Bernie Taupin and Richard Madden as his manager/lover John Reid. Thanks to a strong performance from Bell and the excellent camaraderie that he and Egerton share, the film does a wonderful job exemplifying the strength of Elton and Bernie’s friendship, especially due to it establishing that the latter is quite arguably the only one to fully accept Elton’s sexuality. This is then effectively contrasted with Elton’s relationship with John Reid who, despite forming a romantic relationship with him, proves to be a considerably toxic toll on his life. In other words, it’s a role that provides a nice change of pace for Richard Madden, who’s usually known for playing more heroic characters (e.g. Prince Charming in Cinderella).

In January 2018, Elton John announced that following a three-year Farewell Tour, he would officially be retiring from touring to spend more time with his family. As such, now is quite arguably a perfect time to attempt an Elton John biopic, and the one that we get is easily one of the best of the musical biopic genre. Even as someone who has gone on record saying that I did like last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody, I do concur that it wasn’t exactly the definitive Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic that it could’ve been. With that in mind, Rocketman does go about the whole ‘musical biopic’ thing a lot better even if it still abides by the genre’s well-established tropes. However, unlike some of the other musical biopics that have been made over the years, Rocketman is one of the genre’s most openly honest affairs as it balances out its emphasis on Elton John’s career highs and lows so that we can fully understand everything that made him the legend that he is today. And thanks to some excellent direction from Dexter Fletcher and a visual style that deftly honors its subject’s eccentric flair, Rocketman more than lives up to its tagline of being based on a ‘true fantasy’. But, of course, the biggest highlight of this film is its star, as all the charisma that made Taron Egerton the breakout star of the Kingsman franchise is on full display in what is easily the best performance of his career to date. As such, don’t be surprised if he ends up being a major frontrunner in next year’s Best Actor race just like Rami Malek was last year after playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. 

  

Rating: 4.5/5