Rocketman (2019) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Dexter Fletcher

Starring:  Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard, Stephen Graham, Charlie Rowe, Tate Donovan

Rocketman is a better film than Bohemian Rhapsody.   Let's get that inevitable comparison out of the way.    Rocketman is the biopic of Elton John, who is still alive, while Bohemian Rhapsody told the story of the late Freddie Mercury and once in a while let us in on the dirty little secret that there were three other members of Queen.    Bohemian Rhapsody had almost a TV movie of the week feel to it, while Rocketman is a slicker production chock full of Broadway-type musical numbers highlighting some of Elton's biggest hits.    Rami Malek won an Oscar while lip-synching Freddie Mercury and Taron Egerton actually sings Elton's songs.    In a bizarro world at the movies in 2018, Bohemian Rhapsody was nominated for five Oscars and won four (it missed out on Best Picture).    Rocketman will be unlikely to have the same awards season success.  

No more comparisons between biopics about gay British icons who sang classic songs which are still played and remembered today.    Rocketman is lavish, colorful, and with moments of raw power, but it hedges its bets when it breaks out into the showtune treatment.    This isn't to say some of these versions aren't well done, but why was it necessary for them to be done at all?    I was hoping the opening musical number flashing back to Elton's childhood was a one-off, but alas it was not.

Rocketman opens with John fleeing a concert still clad in one of his signature outlandish costumes and joining an AA meeting.    He wants to get sober, but doesn't exactly want to go through the whole recovery process.   But, he opens up about his cold parents who were incapable of showing love or affection, a grandmother who supported his efforts to learn the piano and become a musician, and then we fast forward to Reg Dwight transforming into Elton John as he meets his lifelong songwriting partner Bernie Taupin (Bell) and struggles with his sexuality.    He doesn't struggle long.
Once Taupin writes the lyrics and Elton puts music to them, Elton John becomes a runaway success faster than you can say "Rocketman".    The whirlwind world of lavish spending, constant recording and touring, and drinking soon evolves into addiction to every drug under the sun.    This is nothing new in movies about real musicians or fictional ones.    The addicts claim the pressure of their lifestyles leads to drug addiction, but 95% of the pressure is caused by the addition itself.    It is a Catch-22.

Taron Egerton is most famous for playing Eggsy in the Kingsman movies and as Eddie the Eagle Edwards in the underrated Eddie the Eagle, but none of his previous roles readied me for the depth he reaches with Elton John.    He is a good singer, and performs John's songs well, but he is able to hit the dramatic high notes as well.    Bell is warm and brotherly as Taupin, whose ego is so secure he is able to handle the fact that Elton achieves all of the fame singing HIS lyrics.   Their friendship is a highlight, although I wish it had been given a little more screen time.

Richard Madden's John Reid, the calculating, bloodless business manager who sees Elton purely as a cash cow even while bedding him, would be the villain in any other biopic, but John's parents trump Reid in the despicable asshole department.    In Bohemian Rhapsody, Mercury's manager was also the exploitative jerk.    Is this a cliché or are business managers really this transparently bottom-line obsessed?   Elton is in love with Reid, even though Reid clearly abuses him, and this further fuels Elton's descent into near-suicide because another loved one has rejected him.

Does Rocketman want to be an honest story about Elton's path to fame, fortune, addiction, near-death, and redemption?    Or does it want to be a ready-made Broadway musical which I predict will reach the stage within the next two years?    This filmmaking choice distracts from the overall emotional investment in John's story.    Just when we really start to care, the movie pulls the rug out from under us and we have to endure singing and choreography which we wish would just end already so we can get back to the more engaging stuff.