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

Fantastic Four (2015) review

Debuting in November 1961 as the first major superhero team developed by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Fantastic Four have been one of Marvel’s most famous franchises as far as the comics are concerned. But as for their track record on the big screen, Marvel’s First Family has not been as successful compared to other Marvel franchises such as Spider-Man, The Avengers, X-Men, or even lesser-known characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy. It all began in 1994 when famous B-movie producer Roger Corman produced a low-budget adaptation of ‘The Fantastic Four’. But because either the production company behind it, Constantin Film, just made it to keep the film rights or Marvel stepped in so that it wouldn’t ‘ruin the franchise’, that film was never released in theaters and is currently only viewable on the internet in bootleg quality. 20^th Century Fox would eventually get a ‘Fantastic Four’ film into theaters in 2005 with the Tim Story directed ‘Fantastic Four’. The film was successful enough financially to warrant a sequel, ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’, in 2007. But while both films performed solidly enough at the box-office, they were also generally disliked by both critics and audiences, primarily for their overtly goofy attempts at humor, some questionable casting choices (i.e. Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman), and, in the case of the sequel, one of the worst changes from the comics in superhero film history in regards to the portrayal of Galactus.

Cut to 2015, 8 years after the release of ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’. Fox is back again with their second major attempt at launching a ‘Fantastic Four’ film franchise. And compared to the previous two films, this one really showed some potential due to who was working on it. It was to be directed by Josh Trank, who was fresh off of 2012’s excellent found-footage flick ‘Chronicle’. It was to be produced by Matthew Vaughn and Simon Kinberg, who were both fresh off of playing a major role in the resurrection of the ‘X-Men’ franchise with 2011’s ‘First Class’ and later ‘Days of Future Past’. And it would feature an excellent group of leads playing the Fantastic Four in Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell. But, as is typical with any film in the superhero genre, this one was subjected to some heavy scrutiny by comic book fans in the months leading up to its release. As is also common with this genre, the casting was one of the major points of controversy amongst fans, primarily the casting of Michael B. Jordan in the role of the Human Torch, who is usually portrayed as a white man in the comics. Additional rumors including major deviations from the source material (including the supposed change of Doctor Doom into a hacker), confirmed reshoots, and rumors of Trank being ‘abrasive’ during the shoot also aroused suspicion that this was going to turn out to be nothing more than a mess. And now that the film has come out… well, unfortunately those fears are well-founded as this new ‘Fantastic Four’ ultimately ends up being a ‘fantastic’ disaster.

In 2007, young Reed Richards dreams of becoming the first human in existence to teleport. With the help of his best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), Reed (Miles Teller) starts to develop a prototype for a teleportation device. That prototype ends up attracting the attention of Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) of the Baxter Foundation, who recruits Reed to help work on a special teleportation device developed by Storm’s old protégé Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell). Along with Storm’s children Sue (Kate Mara) and Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), Reed helps get the machine operational but is disappointed to learn that he won’t be part of the initial voyage to the alternate dimension (referred to as ‘Planet Zero’) that the teleporter is set to head to. But the night before this is set to happen, Reed, Johnny, Victor, and Ben end up taking an unsanctioned trip to Planet Zero so that they could have their chance at using the machine that they created. Once there, chaos ensues and Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Sue (who didn’t come with them but was affected when the device returned to Earth) find themselves with strange new abilities; Reed can stretch his body to great lengths, Sue can turn invisible and generate force fields, Johnny can engulf himself in flames and can fly, and Ben is transformed into a powerful rock-like creature. With these new powers, the four must band together when Victor returns from Planet Zero hell-bent on the destruction of the Earth.

It is very much clear that the theatrical cut of this film was the result of Fox taking away creative control from Josh Trank, which I presume was due to them not having any faith in his vision for the film, which probably included all of those alleged major deviations from the comics (i.e. Doom being a hacker). As a result, the film as it is now definitely feels like the haphazard final product of this meddling. There are quite a few instances of continuity errors (most notably Sue’s changing hairstyle) and the film’s pacing feels off. Ultimately that leads into the film’s biggest issue… it is extremely dull and lacks the visual spark that one can expect from films of this genre. From what I hear, Fox actually cut out at least three major action sequences from the film just days before shooting was set to begin. Uh Fox, you do realize that action sequences are the bread and butter of this genre, right? But apparently they forgot about that because this has to be one of the most boring superhero films that I’ve ever seen in my life. Pretty much all of the film’s action sequences (all 2 of them) happen at the end, which means that basically 80% of this ‘superhero film’ is nothing more than just scenes of exposition. The very much-dragged out buildup to the Four gaining their powers ultimately leads to terrible payoff and the final fight between them and Doom is laughably bland and insignificant. This emphasis on exposition instead of action was also an issue with the 2005 ‘Fantastic Four’ film but even that film had better pacing than this.

Another big issue is that the film is also pretty darn downbeat compared to, well, pretty much every other superhero film ever made. If I haven’t made it clear before, I’ve been rather hesitant about DC’s more serious approach to their superhero films to the point where they are apparently enforcing a ‘no joke’ mandate. But after watching this film, I can safely say that I’m pretty confident that DC will never go as far as this film did in terms of its overall tone. Trank has stated that David Cronenberg was a major influence in regards to how he approached how the Four would react to their transformations; in other words, it’s very much reminiscent of body horror. Now I do think that this is an interesting take on these characters and you can definitely see that in the initial scenes of them with their powers, which are arguably the best scenes in the entire film. But ultimately those are the only moments where this concept is utilized. As a whole, the film is very drab in its overall look and feel, lacking the humor and charm that one can expect from, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are some attempts at humor throughout the film but most of them end up falling flat. Hell, what I’d argue is the best line from the trailer, where Johnny remarks about how he’ll need ‘a heat-resistant workshop and a big-ass sunroof’… isn’t even in the film. Whereas the previous ‘Fantastic Four’ films were a bit too goofy, this film is just too damn serious.

Now I wouldn’t be ‘too annoyed’ with the darker approach if the characters were well-developed. But unfortunately they aren’t and again it’s due to the film’s terrible pacing. Not long after the initial incident they literally cut to one year later, glossing over what should have been essential moments of character development. In fact, it isn’t even until the end of the film when the Four are actually all together on-screen. As a result, you never get a sense of the familial relationships between the main four that define who they are in the comics whatsoever; the friendship of Reed and Ben, the romance between Reed and Sue, etc. And it’s sad because, contrary to popular opinion, I think that the film was well-cast in regards to the main Four. Teller, Mara, Jordan, and Bell have all proven to be some of the best actors/actresses of their generation but unfortunately they’re all pretty much wasted here. And I think that they did a good job in casting Doctor Doom by going with Toby Kebbell, who last year really stood out as Koba, the main villain of ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’. It’s too bad then that Kebbell is majorly underused here. After the incident, Doom is not seen again until the end of the film and by that point there’s absolutely no motivation for his actions other than ‘he’s just evil’. For the record, that is the third straight time that one of Marvel’s most iconic villains has been butchered on the big screen, from being an absolute wuss in the 1994 ‘Fantastic Four’ film to the overly cheesy Doom of the 2000’s ‘Fantastic Four’ films to finally the highly underdeveloped baddie of this ‘Fantastic Four’ film.

Now let me be clear; while it’s obvious that Josh Trank was majorly screwed over by Fox in regards to him losing creative control over what would turn out to be a quite aimless final product, at the end of the day we may never know if his ‘version’ of the film would’ve been any better. This may have just been a case of a young director who was simply unprepared to handle a big-budget blockbuster like this, hence why Fox seemed to have had little faith in what he did with it. Ultimately though, I don’t blame Trank for the fact that this new version of this new ‘Fantastic Four’ film that we got is… just terrible. This film is just not entertaining and not just because it is severely lacking in terms of action sequences, which is something that you really don’t want for a film in the superhero genre, but because it’s also quite dour. Ultimately, it’s just boring; thankfully the film is only 100 minutes long and it actually does fly by rather fast. But at the end of the day, that also means that the film fails to make any major impression whatsoever. And that’s really sad given how many good people worked on it and while I know that a lot of people were hesitant about this film, I was actually really optimistic and hopeful that this film was going to be good and prove its critics wrong. But at the end of the day, it just ends up being a major disappointment, continuing the mediocre track record of the ‘Fantastic Four’ on the big screen. On the bright side, maybe Marvel’s First Family will have greater luck when their film rights are inevitably reacquired by Marvel Studios.  

Rating: 1/5

(P.S. To put this rating into perspective, I gave both the 1994 unreleased low-budget ‘Fantastic Four’ film and both of the early 2000’s ‘Fantastic Four’ films higher ratings than this… now that’s saying something)