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poster for Rocketman (© Dexter Fletcher/New
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After reviewing the Queen/Freddie Mercury music biopic Bohemian Rhapsody just a couple of days ago here on Shuker in MovieLand (click here), it seemed only appropriate to follow it up with a review of the biopic of another major league music act that followed it into the cinemas just a few months later. This later movie is Rocketman, and its subject is Elton John.
My visit on 14 June 2019 to the local cinema was to see the no-holds-barred Elton-John-fuelled extravaganza that is Rocketman, directed by Dexter Fletcher. Inevitably, there is an immediate temptation to attempt a compare-and-contrast coverage featuring 2018's Freddie Mercury/Queen-inspired hit movie Bohemian Rhapsody, especially as both films have as their focus an internationally-renowned rock megastar famed for lifestyle excess and a flamboyant persona. Yet whereas the former movie is by and large a straightforward biopic, Rocketman is more comparable to a deluxe cinematic version of the very popular jukebox genre of stage musical showcasing the major songs of some specific artist or group. And just like the latter genre, it does so via a series of visually and aurally spectacular set pieces, chosen for their aptness in relation to a particular scene or incident in Elton's life story. It also adds to the mix a sizeable helping of visual fantasy, including one scene where he soars high into the air, and another where as an adult he meets himself as a young boy playing the piano at the bottom of a swimming pool – more about which later.
Elton is played with enormous energy and charm by Taron Egerton (who also sings all the songs in an uncannily Eltonesque tone and manner), though it has to be said that Taron, as well as Justin Timberlake and Tom Hardy who had both been previously in the frame to play him, have the kind of physique that I can't personally recall for Elton at least from the videos and concert footage that I've seen. Never mind – bearing in mind that Elton himself was an executive producer of the film and his husband David Furnish one of its producers, you can hardly blame them for selecting as photogenic a star as possible to portray their main man. Also, to be fair, when suited and platform-booted in his famously flamboyant and OTT stage outfits, Elton's own physique was always doomed to take second place to his performance persona anyway, as with Bowie, Mercury, Kiss, and other similarly larger-than-life superstars.
Equally likeable is Elton's longterm lyricist partner and friend Bernie Taupin as rendered by Jamie Bell, although it's quite a shock to see Jamie as he is today, all grown up, when images of his breakout role as the angelic ballet-dancing boy in Billy Elliot still readily come to mind. Richard Madden from the smash-hit TV shows Game of Thrones and Bodyguard plays his real-life manager John Reid (who was also Queen's manager for a time, and in Bohemian Rhapsody was coincidentally played by another former Game of Thrones star, Aidan 'Littlefinger' Gillen), with whom Elton was in a relationship for a time. He is presented very much as the villain of the piece here, rather more so than he was in Bohemian Rhapsody. Yet as Rocketman is such a slick melange of fact and fantasy (even its official advertising tagline is 'Based on a True Fantasy'), how close or otherwise this may be to reality is anyone's guess (unless of course you were there when it all took place, which I wasn't, so I'll never know).
Giving viewers a taste of what to expect right from the very onset, Rocketman's opening scene is nothing if not memorable. Decked out in a full devil-inspired orange jumpsuit outfit, complete with horns and huge scarlet wings (not sure if there was a tail), Elton is seen stalking purposefully down a corridor in what turns out to be an addiction centre, where he duly sits down in a group meeting and tells his life story to the others gathered there, with the movie coming full-circle almost at the end when it shows him arriving there in his devil outfit, determined to turn his life around after it had spiralled almost out of control and existence.
Indeed, a major contrast between Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman is whereas Bohemian Rhapsody largely shies away from documenting Freddie's excesses, Rocketman presents extensive, unflinching coverage of Elton's, relentlessly portraying at the height of his fame Elton's descent into a tragic, deeply unhappy existence fuelled by addiction to drugs and alcohol that on two occasions take him to the very brink of death itself (the scene featuring him at the bottom of the swimming pool portrays one of these occasions). It also depicts his seemingly less than easy relationship with his parents, his greatest support as a young Reginald Dwight yearning for music success apparently coming from his Nan (played with great warmth and empathy by Gemma 'The Duchess of Duke Street' Jones).
Naturally, many of Elton's most famous, classic songs, generally co-written by Bernie Taupin, are featured in Rocketman – including 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road', 'Crocodile Rock', 'Daniel', 'Benny and the Jets', 'I'm Still Standing', 'Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting', 'Pinball Wizard', 'The Bitch Is Back', 'Your Song', 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart', 'I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me', 'Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest World', and, obviously, 'Rocket Man' ('Candle In The Wind' appears as an instrumental). Moreover, a special song written especially for this movie by Elton and Bernie, entitled '(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again', won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 2020 Academy Awards ceremony.
I've never been an Elton John fan as such (although I do like some of his songs a lot – I wish that 'Sacrifice', my all-time favourite, had been included), but I did enjoy Rocketman very much, and I greatly admire Elton's considerable bravery and candour in revealing so much of the downs as well as the ups that have shaped his life and career. Fittingly, the movie ends on a very positive note, or notes, with Taron as Elton launching into a near-identical version of the original video that accompanied Elton's upbeat 1980s hit song 'I'm Still Standing' – because he is indeed, as we are also reminded afterwards via a series of captioned pictures of him in much later years with David Furnish (not portrayed in the film) and their two children, as well as with Bernie Taupin.
My one major quibble – which has nothing to do with the movie itself – is that Taron's absolutely mesmerising performance as Elton did not earn him as much as a Best Actor nomination at the 2020 Academy Awards, let alone the actual award itself, which to my mind is a gross injustice. Perhaps, however, as Rami Malek had won this selfsame Oscar (and deservedly so) at the previous year's Academy Awards for playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, the judges may have baulked at the possibility of a music biopic star winning this same award for a second consecutive year? Who knows? Happily, though, Taron did win a Best Actor Golden Globe for his performance, so he was by no means entirely overlooked, which is excellent.
It has apparently taken around two decades from original concept to final release for Rocketman to appear on screen, but it's been well worth the wait, not only for Elton fans but also for anyone like me who enjoys and appreciates showmanship taken to the nth degree.
No question about it, Rocketman is a great film, visually and aurally – but if you aren't convinced, just click here to check out a superb trailer for it on YouTube!
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
