Bohemian Was Better

Rating: 6/10 (2 June 2019)

I saw Rocketman", starring Taron Egerton-The Kingsman movies, Eddie the Eagle; Jamie Bell-Fantastic Four_2015, King Kong_2005; Bryce Dallas Howard-The Jurassic World movies, The Help and Richard Madden-Game of Thrones_tv, Cinderella_2015.
This is a musical fantasy biography of Elton John's life. I guess there will be more bio pics of musicians since the success of Bohemian Rhapsody but I liked Bohemian better. I like Elton John's music and Taron-who plays Elton-does his own singing here, unlike what they did in Bohemian. But the story is a little on the strange side. It starts with Taron/Elton going to a meeting for people with problems-You know the kind that start with, 'Hi, My name is Elton. I'm an alcoholic/drug addict/sex addict/shopaholic/etc.' The rest of the movie is flashbacks leading up to this moment. All of this is fine and dandy except that they use fantasy sequences that go into musical numbers and dancing frenzies so that you get to when you don't know what is real and what isn't. The music is good and I think Taron does a good job. Jamie plays Taron's writing partner Bernie Taupin-Bernie would write the songs and Elton would supply the music-and they had a good deal going on. Bryce plays Taron's mother and Richard plays a music producer. If you are a big fan of Elton John, you might like it more than I did-I'm a moderate fan-but don't take the kiddies. There are several sex scenes-no actual nudity but there is some partial and insinuated stuff-and some language. During the end credits, they will show a scene from the movie with Taron and then an actual scene of Elton, side by side so that you can compare how they captured the moment.
It's rated "R" for language, drug use and sexual content-no nudity-and has a running time of 2 hours & 1 minute.
It's not one that I would buy on DVD. I might buy the soundtrack, though. Unless you are a big fan of Elton, I would just rent it.