OVP: Rocketman (2019)

Film: Rocketman (2019)
Stars: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard, Gemma Jones
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Original Song-"(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again"*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I cannot stress how much I hated Bohemian Rhapsody last year.  Months after seeing it, and watching it win a bushel of undeserved Oscars, it still haunts me as one of the truly worst movies ever to win an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture (had it won, which I think it was dangerously close to doing considering that Roma seems to have never been properly in the conversation last year), it would have been the worst film to take the trophy, and it might be the nadir of a rush of musical biopics in recent years that will surely become a tidal wave after seeing the box office off of this treatment of Freddie Mercury's life.

(Spoilers Ahead) It is impossible not to bring up Bohemian Rhapsody in relation to Rocketman.  After all, coming just a year after the Queen flick, this is also a movie about a 70's rock god's struggle with money, drugs, and his sexuality; hell, both films have John Reid being played by a different actor from Game of Thrones (in Bohemian Rhapsody it's Aiden Gillen, here it's Richard Madden).  The films are similar in motif, and occasionally in terms of actual content.  Both struggle with how to break out from the mold of what we've come to expect from a musical biopic: a rags-to-riches tale of a genius talent who hits it big, skids, and then either recovers (in the case of John) or eventually succumbs to some of his demons (in the case of Mercury).  The biggest difference is that Rocketman occasionally works in its attempts to step out, having it rise from the complete failure of Bohemian Rhapsody (even though I'd argue that neither movie is all that good).

Rocketman's saving grace is surely that it is trying to be a proper musical, not just having John himself sing, but other side characters tackle his biggest hits in musical montages.  In this way, it kind of transfers from being a cliched musical biopic, but does still veer into a stage cliche-the jukebox musical.  This works when it's fun-Egerton as John is the best part of the movie (it's embarrassing how much better he is compared to Malek's Mercury), giving a glibness to John that was lacking in the two-dimensional Freddie.  The side characters are more hit-and-miss, with something like Bryce Dallas Howard's to-the-rafters take on John's mother being hopelessly indulgent, while Jamie Bell (so good so often these days) does much more with Bernie Taupin.

And lest we forget, the film does in fact have a sex life.  For the first time in a mainstream, Hollywood film of this magnitude, we see two men doing it (Madden & Egerton), and there's nothing cruel or condescending about the act.  Honestly, in what is a nice moment in a world that is too filled with hate, I sat there looking at the entire straight audience I was with, and not anyone batted an eye or looked away as the two hotties got it on.  There was even a lot of knowing chuckles when the impossibly handsome Madden came into the studio in a tailored suit, and Egerton's John got flabbergasted & visibly horny.  These moments of whimsy, with an actor as charming as Egerton, were by-far the bets parts of the movie.  They just aren't enough to ultimately make it a winner.

The film in its back half becomes hackneyed and cliched.  It's better than Bohemian Rhapsody in every conceivable way, but that shouldn't confuse this with being a meaningful or strong film-it's just that the bar bore a whole in the floor it was so easy to cross.  Still, Rocketman has some fun & wit about it, even if it can't rise above a genre that just doesn't have room for originality, despite profiling some of the most creative people of the 20th Century.