Egerton does a commendable job attempting to hold the story together, his performance/impression is decent, his singing is well done, he's able to occasionally convey some real emotion, but there's only so much he can do with the genre cycling erratic script and pointless breakneck pacing. Jamie Bell as Elton's songwriting partner Bernie is so affable he's forgetable. Both of Elton's parents as played by Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh are laughable cartoon villians. Richard Madden as serial psycho agent and Elton's kind-of boyfriend John Reid is straight out of As The World Turns. The cast has some talent in it but almost categorically all the characterizations are thin to the point of transparency, so confused and devoid of emotional clarity it is unclear what is happening and why we should care.
Rocketman plays into all the tired biopic tropes and the most formulaic ways possible but forgets the best part of a musical biopic is the music which is in the movie but presented in bizarre sometimes hard to follow, or even hear, ways. The most egregious fault is the editing, which doesn't allow a single scene to simply be, cutting virtually every 15-20 seconds. Not only does this obscure the dramatic action and the audacious dance numbers it becomes numbing.
It seems clear that the artistic aspect of movie making wasn't much considered in the making of this movie. The studio saw the success of Bohemian Rhapsody and tried desperately to replicate it and because the clear concern was monetary nothing about it really comes together. In the closing credits we learn Elton John is on one final world tour and he has been decidedly present and in-front for the marketing of the movie, perhaps in order to promote the tour, calling into question how biasd the material is.
A music icon is given a by-the-numbers shockingly-boring biopic treatment.
Don't See It.
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