Rocketman Blasts Off

Rocketman (2019)

Rocketman was a continuation in the recent trend of making biopics about musicians who made some truly classic songs and led interesting lives, like Get On Up, Straight Outta Compton, Bohemian Rhapsody, and The Dirt. Where Rocketman separates itself is in its execution. Rocketman behave more like a Broadway musical than a film, similar to Jersey Boys. It uses the music to progress the story as much as it uses dialogue. Some of Elton John’s most famous songs are tweaked slightly to loosely fit what happened in his life and the characters would sing their interactions instead of speak them. For the songs they used, it worked very well and it blended nicely into the narrative. It was a nice change of pace, to have the songs used for development and not as set pieces for nostalgia, like in Bohemian Rhapsody. The movie did have problems, though. Similar to Bohemian Rhapsody, it really handled Elton John’s struggles with addiction and having to hide his sexuality with kid gloves. There were several moments that could have been much more powerful that were simply treated as transitions. But by glossing over those tragic elements, it was able to paint his family life in a very dark manner and root all of his issues to his parents. Rocketman did a nice job of making you hate Elton’s parents. My biggest problem was with the lighting. Coming into the movie, the cast and creators were saying that it was a stretching of the truth, so I expected it to be a bright spectacle, but nearly every scene, even the performances, were lit with natural lighting, making it difficult to see some aspects and unable to convey certain tones. When everything is natural, even the unnatural elements, it all seems ordinary. Overall, even though you can’t see everything, Rocketman was a fun movie with a nice resolution. I give Rocketman 5 out of Elton John’s 7 number one hits.