Taron Egerton's performance as Elton John in 'Rocketman' could well see the actor nominated for an Oscar. (Paramount Pictures via AP)
Taron Egerton's performance as Elton John in 'Rocketman' could well see the actor nominated for an Oscar. (Paramount Pictures via AP)
Taron Egerton's performance as Elton John in 'Rocketman' could well see the actor nominated for an Oscar. (Paramount Pictures via AP)
Taron Egerton's performance as Elton John in 'Rocketman' could well see the actor nominated for an Oscar. (Paramount Pictures via AP)

Review: Rocketman doesn't quite reach the stars


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Rocketman

Director: Dexter Fletcher

Starring: Taron Egerton, Richard Madden, Jamie Bell

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars 

Rocketman opens with a dramatic shot of its hero, pop legend Elton John (Taron Egerton), purposefully striding down a long corridor towards a brightly lit entrance. As he draws up to the doors in his winged and horned stage outfit, he throws them open and bursts triumphantly on to the stage of … a rehab meeting.

It's a nice twist on the usual "triumphant comeback gig" opening we're used to in rock biopics, which usually then rewind to see how we got here. The Rocketman opening suggests that, having been called in to finish off Bohemian Rhapsody in an uncredited director's role following Bryan Singer's sacking, director Dexter Fletcher wants to do things a little differently now he has a biopic all of his own – and a credit – to work with.

He certainly achieves that. Whereas Rhapsody – a film which we can't help comparing to given the timing, shared director, and shared lead villain of Machiavellian music manager John Reid (Richard Madden) – was very much a traditional biopic; Rocketman takes us more down the road of a full blown musical. There are big, staged song and dance numbers, and the musical scenes are used as a part of the narrative rather than an occasional showpiece break from it.

It makes for a great spectacle, and the film looks in parts like it could have been pulled directly from the stage of a glitzy West End musical, appropriately enough for a subject who was prone to his fair share of glitz on-stage over his long career.

The major problem with this approach, however, is that it doesn't really allow us to scratch the surface of the characters, all of whom come across as archetypes. John himself is a whiny, privileged, needy, drama queen – even the scenes where we witness his frosty childhood with a disinterested father and a self-obsessed mother don't elicit that much sympathy as we know he'll be bursting into song again soon enough and all will be right with the world.

Taron Egerton as Elton John in ‘Rocketman’.
Taron Egerton as Elton John in ‘Rocketman’.

Perhaps the most rounded character in the film is John’s long-time writing partner Bernie Taupin (Bell), which is ironic since, given that he wrote almost all of the song lyrics that are being used to propel the story, this should perhaps be his story more than John’s. But Taupin doesn’t bounce around on stage dressed like a Christmas tree, so nobody knows who he is.

There is a refreshing honesty to the film. While Rhapsody markedly sanitised the life of the late Mercury, the still-living John was reportedly adamant that this should be a warts and all version of his life, and with lines like, "I started being [difficult] in 1975 and I haven't stopped since," he's certainly not trying to portray himself as anything better than he may be. That said, the underlying sense of victimhood from a man with an estimated worth of around $250M elicits limited sympathy, and nobody actually forced you into a life of debauchery, you know Elton?

Taron Egerton as Elton John in 'Rocketman'.
Taron Egerton as Elton John in 'Rocketman'.

The film's undoubted high point is Egerton's performance. He's becoming quite the go-to star for these mimicry roles, following his turn as Eddie the Eagle in the 2016 film of the same name, and he has John's look and mannerisms down to a tee. He even performs all the film's songs himself, and though I'm no John aficionado, I did find myself having to check I was right about that when I got home, so convincing were his efforts.

In further Bohemian Rhapsody comparison, Egerton seems likely to follow in Rami Malek's footsteps with an Oscar nod for his performance. It's perhaps that quest for Oscars that led to another of the film's strange narrative choices. The story stops in 1983, with John coming out of rehab and releasing I'm Still Standing, with a show stopping reconstruction of that song's video closing out the film. The 35-years since are ignored, save for a series of textual announcements during the closing credits that John has been sober for 28 years, fell in love, got married and other such titbits that you would think play a fairly major role in John's life.

Could the film makers have been so determined to make an Oscar-worthy movie that they simply chose to ignore all the happy parts of John’s life and focus solely on the drama and misery? The film is an undoubted spectacle, and audiences will love the costumes, the music and the huge set pieces. But in Dexter’s attempts to marry this with a deep and moving look at a traumatic period in his subject’s life, he actually produces a film that seems quite shallow and, at risk of sounding cynical, a superb, headline-grabbing advert for John’s current farewell world tour.

Rocketman is released in UAE cinemas on June 13

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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Afghanistan Premier League - at a glance

Venue: Sharjah Cricket Stadium

Fixtures:

Tue, Oct 16, 8pm: Kandahar Knights v Kabul Zwanan; Wed, Oct 17, 4pm: Balkh Legends v Nangarhar Leopards; 8pm: Kandahar Knights v Paktia Panthers; Thu, Oct 18, 4pm: Balkh Legends v Kandahar Knights; 8pm: Kabul Zwanan v Paktia Panthers; Fri, Oct 19, 8pm: First semi-final; Sat, Oct 20, 8pm: Second semi-final; Sun, Oct 21, 8pm: final

Table:

1. Balkh Legends 6 5 1 10

2. Paktia Panthers 6 4 2 8

3. Kabul Zwanan 6 3 3 6

4. Nagarhar Leopards 7 2 5 4

5. Kandahar Knights 5 1 4 2

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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

Company Profile:

Name: The Protein Bakeshop

Date of start: 2013

Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani

Based: Dubai

Size, number of employees: 12

Funding/investors:  $400,000 (2018) 

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Honeymoonish
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F1 The Movie

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Rating: 4/5

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Rocketman

Director: Dexter Fletcher

Starring: Taron Egerton, Richard Madden, Jamie Bell

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars