Rocketman Shows How To Do A Music Biopic Right

Just as Avatar ushered in a barrage of movies released in digital 3D and It ensured that no Stephen King book would be spared from a film adaptation, the box office success of Bohemian Rhapsody has guaranteed that the music biopic is about to be omnipresent in cinema once again. After nearly a decade of dormancy only interrupted by Straight Outta Compton, that Freddie Mercury biopic made more than enough money to ensure that the subgenre won't be facing an absence like that for quite a long time. If we're gonna get a whole heap of music biopics, can more of them be like Rocketman? Imaginatively made, fun to watch, actually thoughtful when it comes to exploring its real-life subject, as Anakin Skywalker might say, now this is music biopic filmmaking!


As the title makes clear, Rocketman is a music biopic about the life of Elton John, played as an adult by Taron Edgerton. The story begins with Elton John in his childhood as a piano prodigy named Reginald Dwight, which see's him becoming dedicated to the art of music. As he gets older, he attempts to break into the music business with his songwriter and creative partner Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) and once the pair find success, Elton John is well on his way to the top. But with fame comes troubles as John's personal issues stemming from his struggles with addiction and an inability to find love and acceptance from so many of the people closest to him.

One reason why music biopics get so much flack from people (myself included) is how rigidly formulaic they are without putting much imagination into executing that formula. That's why, among a multitude of other reasons, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story worked so well, it brought an absurdist style of humor to lampooning the cornerstones of a subgenre typically brought to life with little in the way of variety. So what a delight it is that Rocketman really stands out from the pack by bringing Elton John's story to life through hordes of interesting creative choices, most notably making this the rare music biopic to be a full-fledged musical.

I can't believe it's taken Hollywood this long to realize that the previously separate worlds of music biopic and musicals could be combined but Rocketman shows why such a merger is a brilliant idea. Extravagant musical numbers, complete with accompanying dancers and back-up singers, allow for the playful energy of songs like Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) to be accurately realized. Meanwhile, later songs meant to explore the darkness of John's struggles with addiction and emotional trauma use the lavish nature of these musical numbers to serve as a tragic visualization of how all the money and glamor in the world can't fill up the emptiness inside the soul of this beloved pop singer.

Going the musical route aids Rocketman on a thematic level about as much as it does on an entertainment level, the musical numbers are beautifully realized here. The aforementioned Saturday Night's Alright For Fightin' set piece is especially impressive and may be one of the very best sequences of 2019 cinema so far. It's a scene that had me jumping for joy to see a modern movie musical number actually shot and edited in a cogent fashion! This is what happens when you hire people who can actually sing and dance to be in your musical, no more of the clumsy editing around stunt performers that kept dragging down the energy of the musical numbers in Beauty and the Beast or The Greatest Showman! Rocketman lets you soak in all the wonderful singing and dancing that happens when Elton John bursts out a tune and under the exceptional direction of Dexter Fletcher, it's a thrilling sight to behold.

Though its musical numbers allow Rocketman to be a unique creature among its musical biopic brethren, parts of its story do still suffer from a derivative nature, especially a laggy part of the second act focused on Elton John's struggles with addiction that feel like they should be accompanied by Elton John shouting "I'm in a dark period!!" Similarly, non-musical numbers sequences have serviceable but more routine editing and directing to them while a number of the wigs and hairstyles worn by the characters aren't all that convincing. But the high notes of Rocketman easily outweigh those sour notes and the highest among those notes has to be Taron Edgerton's miraculous performance as Elton John.

The highest compliment I can give to an actor performing a real-life icon like Elton John is that their performance evoked a fully separate human being to me rather than just an impression of an actual person. That's just what Edgerton achieves here in his portrayal of Elton John, it isn't long into the movie before one just becomes immersed in Edgerton's work as an actor and takes it as its own creation rather than as a caricature of an enormously famous pop star. Edgerton creates a fully-fleshed out human being here that makes both the singer bombast and intimate internal torment of Elton John utterly palpable. Bringing a musical figure as mythic as Elton John to such a tangible human scale is one of the finest accomplishments in Rocketman, a music biopic that soars above its contemporaries with a remarkable lead performance and plenty of imagination to spare. Forget the dismal Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman is somebody to love!