Rocketman; review

An extraordinary movie that follows the story of Elton John's breakthrough years… 

Here are my thoughts on Rocketman...

Rocketman; review

Rocketman, a film that follows the uncensored story of Elton John's early career, is the emotional rollercoaster everyone needs to see. The story begins at a crucial point in Elton's career, then backtracking to where his love for music began... With fascinating musical numbers, heart-breaking, emotional scenes, and hilarious snippets of humour, this movie has something for everyone.

Something that really made this film so extraordinary to watch was the way it switched from an emotive, raw film, to a lively 'musical' almost instantly. This meant that one minute you could be singing along to Tiny Dancer and the next, tears are streaming down your face. Seeing people on the streets dancing around Elton as he sang, is something that should have looked weird, but somehow, it didn't. Scenes like these looked like they belonged in a theatre, on Broadway even,  yet they still managed to tie in with the rest of the movie. 

An aspect that made these musical numbers what they are, was the incredible costumes. As the movie switched timelines quite frequently, many different styles of costume were necessary. In certain scenes, if the costume element of production was eliminated, it would have been nearly impossible to tell when the scene was taking place, and would have left the audience extremely confused. As well as introducing timelines to the film, costume was also (obviously) very important when it came to Elton's 'stage costumes'. Every single costume was an exact replica to Elton John's actual outfits; they looked so much alike, that I wondered if they were the real thing!

Another feature that really stood out to me was the pure talent of the actors. Taron Egerton (who played Elton), in particular gave an amazing performance throughout the whole film. Seeing him play a character he hasn't played before was intriguing, and made me realise the extent of his acting abilities. He managed to impersonate Elton so perfectly, that he even mimicked his walk flawlessly, honestly, he deserves an Oscar for this film. Not only was it Taron that gave an extraordinary performance, but every other actor managed to become their character effortlessly, too. Actors such as Richard Madden (who played John Reid), gave such a believable performance, that at times I absolutely despised them. Which, again, shows the shear skill in their performance as actors.

This movie is an odd twist of possibly every aspect of performance; with comedy, tragedy, romance and, of course, music, it ticks all the boxes. It will make you cry, laugh, gasp, sing and have you on the edge of your seat the entire movie.  If I listed everything I enjoyed about this film, it would go on forever; it really is a must see for everyone...

Header Image Credit: Rocketman movie poster

Author

Eleanor Dunn

Eleanor Dunn Local Reviewer

Gold Arts Award,
New Vic Theatre

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