Nonsensical, trite, and ultimately hollow

Rating: 3/10 (3 September 2019)

The only words of praise I can bestow on this worse than average biopic of a famous musician (and "average" for this particular film genre is a truly low bar) are for the brief moments of genuine pathos we witness in Reggie Dwight's childhood. Not those scenes involving his parents, as they never register as anything more than cardboard cutouts of real human beings, but the few scenes involving his grandmother. She was apparently the only adult in his family who showed him genuine love in his childhood, and the director manages to convey this well in the short amount of time allotted to this minor (but not so minor) character.
It is all downhill from then on.
There are three colossal problems with this movie. The first is the lack of any adherence to the basic chronological facts of Elton John's musical career. You do not need to be a hardcore fan of his to know, or at least suspect, that John did not play "Crocodile Rock" at his opening gig in L.A., because that is a song that did not even exist in 1970, and wouldn't see release until the mid 70's. Similarly absurd is the scene in Dick James' office, well before John was even known in the music world, during which he rattles off the first few seconds of many recognizable songs that would later be major hits. Most notable among them is "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues"-a song that would not be released until 1983, nearly 15 years later. I realize this is supposed to be something of a musical "fantasy" and that I am supposed to "suspend my disbelief." Maybe I would have if the other elements of this movie covered into a satisfying whole. But they don't. Not even close.
The second major problem is the narrative concept of John telling the whole story of his life in rehab, during a group therapy session. Thus, the movie is one flashback after another.
First, it is beyond stupid and actually insulting to think that we're supposed to believe something like this would actually happen. This is not how group therapy works-anywhere, for anyone, no matter how famous you are. For the whole movie, none of the ten or so other patients gets to say a damn thing. They just sit there and listen to the world famous, filthy rich Elton John moan about his supposedly awful life. Oh wait, the leader of the group therapy session gets to ask a few questions. Sorry. To make this situation even less realistic, John is alternately dressed in a ridiculous devil-with-wings costume, or simply in a bathrobe, naked underneath, wearing big glasses with pink glitter on the rims. Give me a break. Even if you have never spent time in rehab, you can see that none of this would fly in such a setting. People take turns talking. No one gets to hog the floor. It's as if the screenwriter and director knew nothing, absolutely nothing at all about addiction treatment. It's been a while since I have witnessed such a massive display of ignorance and stupidity on display in a major Hollywood production-and one that's gotten largely decent reviews, for God's sake.
Finally, and worst of all, is a flaw common to the majority of biopics-the period of time covered is too great, there is too much territory to cover, and so the result is that the majority of the film feels like a summary of the subject's life. When will these people learn that less is more? Why do you need to cram so much into so little time? Even though the movie is two hours long, the cramming "effect" still leads to patently absurd sequences such as John's ill fated marriage to a German recording engineer in the mid 80's. He meets her for the first time (apparently), they get married, and then they get divorced-all of this in the space of no more than 3 or 4 minutes. Renate Blauel, his wife for 4 years, is granted only 3 or 4 lines, all of them brief.
The last flaw above all is what kills so many biopics. This is why this genre is so aggressively, predictably mediocre, 9 times out of 10. "Rocketman" is worse than mediocre, however. It is a genuinely awful film, and worse, an awful film that has received a bizarre amount of enthusiastic praise from fans and critics, who are paid to know better, alike.
If this movie is superior to its 2019 counterpart "Bohemian Rhapsody", as so many have claimed, On the other hand, I do not think I can trust in that claim if its source is someone who believes Rocketman is an example of good filmmaking. Regardless, I've had my fill of rock star biopics.
My advice to other directors who take it upon themselves to tell the life story of so and so rockstar: don't tell their life story. Don't make a biopic. Focus on a year or two in their lives, or even a month, week, or single day. Give yourself time to flesh out the characters, to bring them to LIFE. Fast forwarding through a decade or more inevitably lends your story a "greatest hits" sort of feeling.