Not bad

Rating: 6/10 (22 May 2019)

A work of efficient legacy image-management by Sir Elton and his team. It's quite funny in places, visually impressive in others (the costumes are a real treat), harmlessly enjoyable on the whole. It's like watching an unusually raunchy school pageant, basically innocent but with a lot of knowing references to that naughty world of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll beyond -- or maybe on -- the sports fields.
Taron Egerton is a good, perhaps very good, character actor in the making. He has a certain hidden quality that makes him intriguing. He doesn't have the charisma of a Brad Pitt or a Leonardo de Caprio, or the young Johhny Depp. Using his acting chops, he successfully recreates Elton the performer. He doesn't communicate the depths of despair that we're shown the great man going through, though. I'm not sure why. Perhaps the problem is the glib psychobabble of these scenes that are the weak points of Lee Hall's otherwise nicely-wrought script. Acting support varies from the excellent (Jamie Bell, Gemma Jones) to the inexplicable (Bryce Dallas Howard).
The film is a juke-box musical, drawing on Sir Elton's extensive back catalogue to slot in to appropriate on-screen situations. Mostly these are easy fits (Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, for example), some more oblique. The most successful is the title number, which is realised in an entirely unexpected, totally effective way. Kudos to all concerned.
I have no doubt this movie, like Bohemian Rhapsody before it, will make a several mountains of money. It's not a bad film. On the whole it's an entertaining film. Credit to director Dexter Fletcher and his team for that. For me, this attempt to be mega-popular is always going to mean punches are pulled, that the unhappiness is never going to be particularly intense, while the highs are only tolerably high. On the other hand, the movie embraces Elton's gayness, working it through from a secret to a point of pride. That's excellent.