j* Movie Reviews 2019

Rocketman (2019)

I forgot what real-Elton looked like because Taron is just so convincing.

Taron Egerton is amazing. He is such a phenomenal actor and it was great to see him extending into a lesser action and more emotional space in this. With singing. Yes, if you are in any doubt, be warned that this is an actual full-on MUSICAL, rather than just a musical biopic. These are different beasts. In this you have characters breaking into song mid-scene, swirling in amazing musical dance numbers.

And Egerton is pretty amazing at it. He brings a whole new A-game to Elton, with the swagger and the pants and the song. It did feel a little, as many musicals do, that you needed to know the basics of the story, because it focuses on moments and frocks more than super-solid narrative. And boy-howdy, are the moments and frocks spectacular. There are these epic sequences of endless, seamless costume changes cut magically as continuous. Passage of time levelled up.

Speaking of levelled up, there are some excellently surreal moments and transitions between places and spaces here. It is delicious to watch what might be drug-induced psychosis, or might just be vivid imaginations visualised with such colour and sparkle and fireworks and fanfare. Glorious.

There's a great spattering of songs, obviously. Some notable missing moments (No Candle in the Wind??!!) It was interesting to see Elton was part of such a strong song-writing duo because I had no idea. Usual tortured artist business for the most part but with far cooler costuming. Happy ending in sobriety.

I liked it and thought it was really pretty good, but at the end of the day it's still a musical.

J* gives it 3 stars.

PS. A lot of people are comparing it to Bohemian Rhapsody and I don't think that's quite fair... Boho is much more a biopic, and it contains much more anthemic rock. I'd rate Boho slightly higher than Rocketman - last year I gave it 3.5 stars.