Review of Rocketman (2019) by Ahmedaiman1999 — 04 Sep 2019

Elton John is one of my all-time favourite singers, so there's no need to say how much I was excited for this film. I also like Taron Egerton so much. I think he's one of the most talented young actors working today. My expectations were as high as a kite. The only thing I was concerned about is that this film is directed by Dexter Fletcher, the same man who was behind the abysmal Queen biopic. But what made Bohemian Rhapsody this bad is its troubled production anyway, right? Not really!

The first half is almost as perfunctory as Bohemian Rhapsody, and the second half is almost as messy as Bohemian Rhapsody. And it still has many outdated techniques that were used to force more events into sequences and make them more brief. Actually, it sounds as if Fletcher used here the same exact formula he used to make Bohemian Rhapsody. But these flaws can be partially justified this time by the fact this film doesn't intend to tell a story that captures the highs and lows of the artist, but rather to express them through the semi-fantastical approach it takes to tell its story. But there are also two major problems here that hindered the film to fully compensate for its shallow characters, clichés and messy structure.

I'm glad that Fletcher took some risks here. He tried to visually express Elton John's inner turmoil. He tried to tell his story of ups and down surrealistically using Elton's point of view. The thing is I couldn't even see there are ups and down; they are all downs. I believe that was intentional because the filmmakers knew that the plot is dramatically poor.

I think the fantastical elements don't add much to neither the story, nor the protagonist. Mostly, they ended up being nothing more than gimmicks. I believe no one can deny it was pretentious decision, and that Fletcher's ambition obviously exceeds his grasp by taking this decision besides using some other narration techniques.

However, I was quite entertained. Honestly, I think I never had a moment of boredom throughout the film's two-hour runtime! Mostly due to Egerton's powerhouse performance that definitely should earn him an Oscar nod. Jamie Bell who played Elton's writing partner, Bernie Taupin, is also great. I can say the same about all the actors and actresses in this film except for Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintoshwho played Elton's mother and father respectively. I know that it's their skin-deep, archetypal characters who are to blame, but I simply couldn't stand their appearances on the screen.

The second reason I enjoyed this film is that pretentious its narrative style as it is, I felt that it added some frequent and refreshing glimpses to an otherwise formulaic story that tries to conceal itself under the glitz and glamour of the irresponsible Elton John.

Finally, the third reason I kinda liked this film is that despite its glaring lack of dramatic heft, I found some rather emotional moments here and there that touched me quite a bit.

Rocketman really had potential to be a great, rather than an OK, film, if it was made by more efficient filmmakers. That said, I believe it's still better than Bohemian Rhapsody.