Rocketman
Posted: June 9th, 2019, 2:24 pm
5/10. A musical about Elton John's life (up to 1984). Really good at first, then gets boring and repetitive.
Film starts well with a clever and funny opening sequence and then gets inventive, interesting and enjoyable for quite a while following Elton's childhood and adolescene, right up until the point that Elton first breaks through, then it all subsides into a hackneyed storyline of "poor little rich person who can have everything he wants, except true love". Don't go breaking my heart, Elton.
The young Reg Dwight is quite shy and not considered to be front-man material, but they put him on a treadmill and make him change his name. He writes a song for the guy that he's co-writing with, then he gets into drugs, gets high as a kite, overdoses but someone saves his life that night. He wants love, just a different kind, but it seems like it's going to be a long, long time before that happens, and he wonders what he's gotta do to make people love him. It's so sad, just a sad, sad situation. We do see him rolling like thunder under the covers and he can certainly feel the love that night. Elton likes his own way and has trouble apologising for his bad behaviour, as sorry seems to be the hardest word for him.
Film ends on a high (but not a drug-induced one) as he becomes stone cold sober as a matter of fact and inevitably, he's still standing and picking up the pieces of his life.
The story of early Elton is really interesting and comparatively unknown (he used to do covers of several different famous artists), and I feel there's a lot more they could have done with this. He does have a real genius for being able to create new music extremely quickly to any given set of lyrics, and I'd have found this much more interesting then the angry and miserable multi-millionaire that we see for the majority of the film. Taron Egerton is really good as Elton John, but Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin just gives us a succession of poses.
Film starts well with a clever and funny opening sequence and then gets inventive, interesting and enjoyable for quite a while following Elton's childhood and adolescene, right up until the point that Elton first breaks through, then it all subsides into a hackneyed storyline of "poor little rich person who can have everything he wants, except true love". Don't go breaking my heart, Elton.
The young Reg Dwight is quite shy and not considered to be front-man material, but they put him on a treadmill and make him change his name. He writes a song for the guy that he's co-writing with, then he gets into drugs, gets high as a kite, overdoses but someone saves his life that night. He wants love, just a different kind, but it seems like it's going to be a long, long time before that happens, and he wonders what he's gotta do to make people love him. It's so sad, just a sad, sad situation. We do see him rolling like thunder under the covers and he can certainly feel the love that night. Elton likes his own way and has trouble apologising for his bad behaviour, as sorry seems to be the hardest word for him.
Film ends on a high (but not a drug-induced one) as he becomes stone cold sober as a matter of fact and inevitably, he's still standing and picking up the pieces of his life.
The story of early Elton is really interesting and comparatively unknown (he used to do covers of several different famous artists), and I feel there's a lot more they could have done with this. He does have a real genius for being able to create new music extremely quickly to any given set of lyrics, and I'd have found this much more interesting then the angry and miserable multi-millionaire that we see for the majority of the film. Taron Egerton is really good as Elton John, but Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin just gives us a succession of poses.