Review: This movie is definitely style over substance much of the time, but the style is fantastic.
Unlike most rock-star bio-pics, this movie presents its story in a way that was clearly inspired by Broadway musicals. The characters often break into song in a way that turns to big production numbers. These song sequences are often the highlights of the movie. Not only are the songs just as great as ever, but what you see on screen is often just as good. The visual filmmaking here is brilliant, perfectly creating a huge scope and many touches that perfect match the emotions of the song and scene. There is such a great energy here that is simply irresistible. This shows what a rock and roll musical should be, equally exciting audibly and visually. Just as importantly this is perfectly woven into the film. Never does a character breaking into song feel forced or out of place. Like good musicals should do each of these songs fits what is happening in the story and makes the emotion feel more real than straight dialogue ever could.
The performances in this film are equally excellent and Taron Egerton is perfect as the famous rock star. He gives truly emotional and human performance.
The story itself is fine, but rather predictable and typical for this type of movie. It starts off extremely well with young Reginald Dwight and how he became Elton John. This is all done fantastically and you quickly grow to root for this character with all your heart. However after he becomes famous the story becomes less interesting and more cliché. With the exception of the great musical numbers everything that happens after this point is what we have seen a million times in these rock and roll biopics. At times it can become rather repetitive and long at this point. Not helping matters is that one of the central characters (Elton's manager) is simply portrayed here as a bland one note villain (as well as one who is too similar to a character from the recent Bohemian Rhapsody). The story never becomes bad and there is more than enough to make it still work, but one can easily wish it remained as strong as it was earlier on.
This movie is a bit uneven, but what is good is excellent and I definitely will still recommend the movie despite its faults for that reason.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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