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

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) review

In the pantheon of legendary rock groups, easily one of the most prominent is the quartet of vocalist Freddie Mercury, lead guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bass guitarist John Deacon, AKA Queen. In the 70’s and 80’s, Queen produced some of the most iconic songs of all-time and partook in some of the most legendary performances in rock and roll history, with perhaps the most notable being their appearance at the Live Aid benefit concert in 1985. With all this in mind, you may be surprised to find that plans for a Queen biopic spent several years in development hell. For quite some time, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was tapped to play Freddie Mercury. However, he ultimately backed out in 2013 due to creative differences, presumably due to a rewritten script that would’ve focused more on Queen following Mercury’s tragic death due to AIDS in 1991 along with fears from May and Taylor that his comedic background would cause too many distractions. Eventually, Rami Malek took over the part and Bryan Singer was set to direct in what would be his first big directorial effort after his long-time stint on the X-Men franchise. And yet, even the production of the film itself was plagued by some major issues, which ultimately escalated to the point where Singer was fired halfway through filming for various reasons that ranged from continual on-set tardiness to reportedly tense feuds with Malek. Director Dexter Fletcher (who ironically has his own musical biopic, the Elton John vehicle Rocketman, hitting theaters next May) was then brought on to finish the film, but Singer was ultimately given its sole directorial credit as it was already 2/3rds of the way done by the time that this scandalous switcheroo occurred. Thus, for all intent and purposes, Bohemian Rhapsody (named after arguably the band’s most iconic song) is still a Bryan Singer film, and while it may not do complete justice to Queen and its legendary front-man, it still manages to be a highly entertaining musical biopic with a phenomenal lead performance from Rami Malek.

Tired of his job as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport in 1970, Farrokh Bulsara (Rami Malek) ends up finding a new job as the lead singer of an up-and-coming band named Smile alongside guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) after the band’s original singer leaves to join another group. Together, along with fellow recruit/bass guitarist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello), the band changes their name to Queen and Farrokh changes his legal name to ‘Freddie Mercury’ while also beginning a romance with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). And after they produce their titular debut album in 1973, the band manages to land a major contract deal with lauded manager John Reid (Aiden Gillen) at EMI Records. Unfortunately, the band begins to face some pushback when they attempt to be more experimental with their 1975 album A Night at the Opera. Despite managing to craft the six-minute operatic suite known as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, EMI executive Ray Foster (Mike Myers) refuses to have it serve as the album’s first single due to its length. Undeterred, the band leaves EMI on their path to becoming one of the most popular music groups of the era. However, the band’s bond eventually begins to be put to the test, especially after Freddie shocks his bandmates with the announcement that he’s been signed for a solo career. And as for his personal life, that too begins to get quite rocky when he finds himself starting to question his sexuality.

Perhaps the biggest question surrounding this film is whether it manages to truly do justice to the story of Queen and, more importantly, Freddie Mercury. And overall, this has been a major source of contention amongst critics, many of whom have noted that there are several instances where the film isn’t exactly ‘historically accurate’ (e.g. how Freddie first met May and Taylor, the band’s status after Freddie went solo, etc.). With that in mind, it’s understandable if some feel that this isn’t as proper of a representation of this story as it could’ve been, as there are admittedly a few moments in the film where it doesn’t quite capture the emotional resonance that it’s trying to achieve. But despite its narrative shortcomings, the film manages to work a lot better in all its other areas. While there are a few instances where the film tends to drag a bit, it also boasts a pleasantly light-hearted nature throughout thanks to some solid comedic banter amongst Freddie and his bandmates. Now granted, I’m fully aware that this won’t fly well with everyone as many had hoped that the film would be a more risqué glimpse into the band’s history instead of what we ultimately get in this ‘watered down’ PG-13 rated film that’s more intent on being an all-around crowd-pleaser. But in that regard, it does succeed in what it’s trying to be thanks in large part to its rousing musical numbers that utilize the band’s classic tunes like ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, ‘We Will Rock You’, and of course, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to great effect. And as many other critics have stated, the recreation of Queen’s iconic performance at Live Aid during the film’s finale is an undisputed highlight. To reiterate a point that I made a few weeks ago about Damien Chazelle’s First Man and its recreation of the iconic Apollo 11 mission, this film perfectly captures what it must’ve been like to witness a truly legendary musical performance for those like me who weren’t there to experience it firsthand. 

The challenge of playing someone as legendary as Freddie Mercury is undoubtedly a daunting task for anyone to attempt, but Rami Malek truly shines in the role, as he does a fantastic job when it comes to replicating Freddie’s eccentric mannerisms and his all-around charismatic persona. And while some were fearful that the film would underplay Freddie’s sexuality based on the first trailer, it ends up handling it in a manner that isn’t quite as problematic as they suspected but is still far from perfect nevertheless. While the first half of the film primarily focuses on Freddie’s relationship with Mary Austin up until their eventual breakup, the rest of the film does an okay enough job of showing Freddie’s bisexual side even though his other prominent lover, Jim Hutton (Aaron McCusker), is basically limited to a cameo role. But as for Mary, Lucy Boynton does a very nice job in the role; her chemistry with Malek is excellent and the film does a nice job of showcasing how, even after their breakup, the two continued to remain on good terms with each other. And while Freddie is obviously still the main protagonist throughout, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, and Joseph Mazzello are all excellent as Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon, respectively. Each of them gets to have their own standout moment here and there, from Roger’s frustration at having to do numerous takes of the ‘Galileo’ part of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (“How many more Galileos do you want?”) to John coming up with the iconic riff for ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ during one of the band’s heated arguments. More importantly, these four very much succeed at conveying their group’s strong camaraderie.

Now despite all the positive things that I’ve just said, it really should be noted that if you’re a big fan of Queen, it’s quite possible that you might be a bit disappointed with this film as it’s far from being a pitch-perfect take on their history as seen through the eyes of their iconic ringleader. For starters, it’s not exactly the most historically accurate musical biopic ever made as it does take some major creative liberties with certain moments in Queen’s prestigious history. And while the film doesn’t completely ignore the fact that Freddie Mercury ended up becoming one of the most prominent icons of the LGBT community, it still could’ve handled this side of the story a lot better (e.g. giving Jim Hutton a more prominent role in its proceedings). Simply put, this is not the dark and edgy Queen biopic that a lot of their fans were hoping for. Instead, it’s more of a light-hearted crowd pleaser… but that’s not entirely a bad thing, for the record. The musical sequences in this film are phenomenal, highlighted by the epic finale that is Queen’s performance at Live Aid which is practically worth the price of admission alone. Rami Malek is purely electric in the role of Freddie and is backed by an equally excellent supporting cast. And despite the whole debacle that led to Dexter Fletcher being brought in to take over for Bryan Singer, the film thankfully never feels like the mismatched product of two different directors. In short, Bohemian Rhapsody is far from perfect, but it’s still a fun time to be had when viewed on the big screen with a crowd who’s ready and willing to tap their feet in time with the music.

Rating: 4/5