Rocketman

Really good biopic, different to what I thought it would be, Taron Egerton was awesome , loved how the songs were integrated in film, give it a go you won't be disappointed!

I have been waiting for weeks to the premier and Taron's performance blowed me away. I can't tell it was going for a movie about Elton John or going to a premier of a concert where Taron singing and performing and telling his life story from the screen (or from the stage cause it's a premier). His voice is precious, is emotional and is skillful. He got that powerful voice yet that soulful and soft that I am sure that he is the right person, the PERFECT person for those songs and for this film. Such a perfect actor, with a gifted voice. His acting was outstanding and his eyes told things. I can felt his thoughts and feelings, his sadness, disapointment, his emptyness. Just, breathtaking. And Jamie Bell did great, Richard Madden also, such a wonderful compilation of these three talented and professional actors. Love their charisma and their chemistry together. Thank you very much for a great movie. Really enjoyed it.

First things first, Elton John being one of the most famous artists in the world, with a career of about half a century and 300 million albums sold, a biopic was then more than legitimate and was even eagerly awaited. This film is conceived like a musical based on the songs and the life of Elton John, from the 50s to the early 80s, the selected songs being representative of the manifold events of his life, the ups (his life as an accomplished artist mainly) and the downs (his whole private life according to the movie), since his childhood during which he quickly turns out to be a natural born musician until his first sentimental disappointments and the first cures of detoxification (alcohol, drug, ... and tutti quanti). The movie ends with the punchy « I'm still standing », song written in 1983 after a bad patch and foreshadowing a frantic recovery of his life, the lyrics being written by his friend Bernie Taupin.

One of my favorite scenes among many others is the meeting at the Royal Academy of Music, with the third movement of the Sonata Piano No. 11 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played twice. I do not know if it's true but, if so, this child is ingeniously bluffing!

The costumes are superb and the actors are fabulous. The realization is ingenious especially with the appropriate and relevant insertion of the songs in the film, like in a musical. As a synthesis: 7/8 of 10.

This is not a movie about a rock star with their music simply part of the facts of the story. It is a musical in the truest sense, that uses his own music to show his tribulations through the eyes of a man during the troubled years of his life. The movie is not always chronological and in some cases is more figurative than historical. In this way it can convey Sir Elton John's life and struggles in a way that the viewer may understand on a more personal level. The acting, writing and singing are superb. The star did not try to truly imitate Elton but instead preforned the pieces in his own style that he molded as closely as possible to the original. It sounds odd, but it works. As always you can never sum up any life, book or story in a 2 or so hour movie, but this comes close. You leave feeling like you really got to know the real, yet flawed, human Elton John. Overall a wonderful movie.

Rocketman decides to focus on Elton John's character evolution more than anything else, chronicling his life from when he was a wee-little boy to his glory days as the colorfully decorated, piano-playing, musically blustering star. One detail I must address that really hoisted the exploration of John's life was, in reality, the "R" rating.

You get to see a respectful and psychological turn in his persona, you get to witness the heartbreaking "addictions" that he constantly forces himself into, you get to view the uncut collision of him dealing with his sexuality, and you even get to feel that loss of love that Elton had felt when he persistently questioned his relationship with peers. All of these affairs are dispensed without and blockades or any desires of censorship and I must commend the filmmakers for going about this risky decision.

And sure, Rocketman is arguably quite the corn-fest at times, but the movie is able to take these cheesy elements of the typical rockstar biopic and format it into a creative fashion that characterizes more charismatic and less repetitive exhibitions. Which brings me to my next point...

I am so pleased that Rocketman turned out to be a nearly full-on musical? I mean, it had to find some way to be different from Bohemian Rhapsody, right? Whenever a musical note comes on it's not just there for Elton John fan-a-holics. The songs always pertain to the presented events transpiring on screen. The methods they use to present the songs as well, offer some more than compulsive and devouring visuals. I also appreciated how they redid all the songs to fit the scenes in a more appropriate manner. It makes the film seem less like a compilation of Elton's original greatest-hits and more like a rendition of what each song means to the story.

Now, Taron Egerton's performance in this is...wow, wow, wow, wow, WOW. He is just bleeding with range and chaotic pizazz in this encapsulation of a contrasted human individual. If someone is worthy of an Oscar nomination this year, it's this guy.

Rocketman doesn't entirely rely on nostalgia like most of its kind does-that implying that sometimes it does, however-and most of its misfit adventures proved about in the story seem earned rather than glossed over at a maximum pace of negligence. Definitely check this one out, especially if you're an Elton John fan!