What a disappointment:(

Rating: 1/10 (17 June 2019)

I am a huge Elton John fan starting from way back when I was a kid in the '70's, and although I knew not to expect a straight biopic from what I had already heard about the film, I certainly didn't expect this! From the first song straight through the rest of the film, all I was thinking is that what we were watching was the Broadway musical Elton has probably always wanted to do, and probably should have done instead of a film. Ironically, now there's talk of turning this into a musical, so why not have gone that route instead?
I cannot even single out what was the worst thing about "Rocketman", but certainly the most irritating was the time frame of events/songs. My concern is that people of a younger generation who don't know much about Elton and see this film will think that certain things that occurred are fact, like that one of the songs he performed at the historic Troubadour show that helped catapult him to superstardom was "Crocodile Rock", when in reality, it hadn't even been written yet. Another concern was an example from a fan review I read on another website where a woman(who didn't seem like she was real familiar with Elton's life)said that after seeing "Rocketman"(which she loved), she "felt sorry" for him. I really don't think that Elton John would want pity from his fans, but because there is so much emphasis on the unhappy events in his life, one who is not familiar with the man and his body of work would think he hardly had ANY good times in his life during that crazy superstar time, and he DID have a significant amount of fun, he has admitted in interviews over the last couple of decades.
If this film was going to be a musical, it should have had at least a fair balance of good and bad times, and not so much a woe-is-me film. But even with a fair balance, the whole thing would have still probably been a hot mess with the way it was made. A straight biopic would have been SO much better. Somebody needs to make a REALLY good and detailed documentary(and it doesn't even have to be a film in theatres; it can be a multi-part series on a network like HBO or Showtime)on Elton John. If you really want to see something that more successfully captures the fascinating complexity that is Elton, I recommend watching "Tantrums and Tiaras" from 1997, the documentary that was directed by David Furnish(then-boyfriend, now husband). That will be far more interesting than "Rocketman" was, so save your money and skip "Rocketman", and I say this as somebody who's loved Elton John and his music for decades. Because I am a longtime fan, I really, really wanted to like, no, LOVE the film, but unfortunately, I just couldn't.