Review: "Rocketman"

There’s a lot to like about “Rocketman,” a movie that very much wants you to like it about a man who spent a lifetime making likable music. It’s the life story of pop singer Elton John, which he produced himself after trying for two decades to get it made.

That’s a very Oprah thing to do, and watching the movie reminds me of that “O” magazine where she puts herself on the cover of every issue. It’s an enjoyable flick, as long as you understand it’s a great big ol’ narcissism pie.

Of course this film will be compared to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was a better movie about a better singer from last year. Taron Egerton plays Elton and sings the songs himself, despite not much looking or sounding like him. For example, he repeatedly refers to himself as fat, then he takes his shirt off and it looks like the usual sculpted Hollywood bod.

It’s a solid turn, though I didn’t emotionally connect to this character like I did “Rhapsody.”

The film, directed by Dexter Fletcher (who worked with Egerton on “Eddie the Eagle”) from a script by Lee Hall of “Billy Elliott” fame, is pitched more like a Broadway musical than a conventional biopic. People will suddenly walk out of their scene into a musical number, using Elton’s sprawling catalogue of pop hits to carry the story.

Of course, Elton didn’t write his songs to be part of a coherent narrative, so some of the lyrics are changed around or very different arrangements provided. It mostly works, but sometimes it doesn’t.

We start with Elton entering an addiction group therapy having walked out of a performance wearing one of his signature extravagant stage outfits, something that looks half an angel and half a devil. He lays out his confession that he’s an alcoholic, drug and sex addict, bulimic and shopaholic. Then we flash back to his life story, starting at childhood but mostly taken up with his 20s and 30s.

At first he’s arrogant and in denial, but as the film goes on pieces of his costume fall off, and he gets more real.

Born Reginald Dwight, his childhood was unhappy, ping-ponging between parents (Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh) who openly loathed each other and often took out their frustrations on the shy, bespectacled kid who showed a talent for piano. His grandmother (Gemma Jones) is the only one who openly encourages him.

He grows into an awkward teen who learns the music biz backing up American soul acts touring the U.K. in the late 1960s. “You’ve got to kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be,” one of them advises.

The arc of his life changes when John is introduced to Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), and they go on to form a half-century songwriting partnership. Elton had a genius for melodies but was bad with words, which Bernie supplied ably. It’s a tender, brotherly relationship with a brief hint of romance in the beginning.

If “Bohemian Rhapsody” was criticized for glossing over its main character’s homosexuality, “Rocketman” puts it front and center. It’s the central theme of Elton’s struggle in life, trying to be what others want instead of being true to himself. This plays out in a haze of drug-fueled montages as he performs for massive concert crowds in between waking up in strange places.

Fletcher sends his camera flying around his subject, with each turn of the piano resulting in a new costume change to denote the passage of time. It makes for a breezy aesthetic, but also tends to brush over pivotal events like his brief, disastrous 1980s marriage to a woman he had just met.

The other major relationship is John Reid (Richard Madden), who became Elton’s boyfriend and manager. It’s an extraordinarily vicious portrayal, depicting Reid as a soulless manipulator who was willing to sacrifice his client/lover’s health and well-being to further his own ends. Their initial hook-up is probably one of the most scorching gay sex scenes we’ve seen in a mainstream movie.

I liked “Rocketman” but walked out of it feeling like I didn’t know Elton John any better than I did going in. Ever the showman, he shows us his self-destructive side, but only the parts he knows will dazzle.

Review: "Sing"

“Zootopia’s Got Talent.”

That was the three-word review provided by a pal who saw the movie before me, and it sums up “Sing” better than I could.

This is a breezy, glitzy animated jukebox show in which movie stars play singing critters getting together for a big talent competition. It will probably win with most children, especially those who like pop songs and want to hear Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and the like belting them out through the mouths of pigs and porcupines.

Grownups may find it a bit tedious -- I came awfully close to catching a few Zzzs during our screening -- but it builds a good head of steam toward a showstopper finale.

Written and directed by Garth Jennings, who also provides the voices of one of the minor characters, “Sing” is set in an all-animal metropolis very much like the one in “Zootopia,” where humans are neither seen nor heard, and may not even exist in this world.  (Christophe Lourdelet is co-director.)

Matthew McConaughey, who turns out to be a real vocal chameleon between this and his voice acting in “Kubo and the Two Strings,” plays Buster Moon. He’s a koala bear charlatan who runs a grand old theater that’s had one big failure after another.

McConaughey plays Moon light and schmaltzy, employing the upper register of his voice without a hint of that famous Texas drawl. Moon is an old-school “let’s put on a show” type with a heart of gold, but isn’t above stiffing contractors and a dab of flim-flam.

With the bank threatening repossession, he comes up with an idea for a huge singing contest using local unknowns. Scraping together his last bit of cash, he instructs his elderly iguana secretary to put out flyers advertising a $1,000 prize, but through some slapstick action it gets turned into $100,000. Soon every critter in town who thinks they can warble worth a darn is beating down his door.

McConaughey doesn’t get past humming, but there is a great deal of singing, both old standards and a few new tunes. Some of the actors we already knew could sing -- Johansson, Seth MacFarlane. But it’s a treat to hear Reese Witherspoon, as hectored porcine housewife Rosita, fry up some bacon and serve it with style.

Pop singer Tori Kelly plays Meena, an elephant who takes a job as stagehand because she’s too shy to show her talent. Johansson is Ash, a surly teen porcupine rocker who gets to step out of the shadow of her controlling boyfriend. MacFarlane voices Mike, a streetwise mouse who dresses, behaves and sings like he stepped right out of Sinatra’s Rat Pack.

The real sensation is Taron Egerton, the affable Brit you may remember from “Eddie the Eagle” and “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” He plays Johnny, a Cockney gorilla who comes from a clan of career criminals, and doesn’t want to follow in the family footsteps. Egerton’s got some truly golden pipes, soft and silky.

There’s really not a whole lot of narrative ambition to “Sing.” Each character has a mini arc to travel along, and we know where they’re going to land two minutes after we meet them. But the songs are nice to listen to, the creatures are crazy cute and your kids will be entertained for 108 minutes.

Video review: "Legend"

“Legend” is a solid gangster picture and a showcase for the versatile Tom Hardy, who played both halves of the infamous Kray sibling duo, who ruled London’s criminal underside in their 1960s heyday.

Written and directed by Brian Helgeland, based on a book by John Pearson, it tries a little too obviously to be the “British ‘Goodfellas’” -- but if that’s the worst thing you can say about a movie, that isn’t too shabby.

The challenge for Hardy is playing two men who outwardly are very similar but personality-wise are quite different. Reggie Kray was smooth, dapper, an ex-boxer and consummate ladies’ man who liked to run swank nightclubs and hobnob with celebrities. Ronnie was a sociopath -- he’d been committed to psychiatric hospital -- belligerent and bisexual. He was devoted to Reggie but resented the way people were drawn to him, so Ronnie repelled others as a way to compensate.

Even the way the twins talk diverges in Hardy’s interpretation. Ronnie sounds as if he has a mouthful of marbles, through which his harsh cockney accent bleats and spits.

(Hardy, while a monumentally gifted actor, seems to have a contemptuous disregard for comprehensibility. You’ll want to watch this one with the subtitles on.)

Emily Browning plays Frances, who gets courted and wed by Reggie, which she soon comes to regret as they are separated by his partying and prison stints. She narrates the film, performing much the same role as the William Holden character in “Sunset Boulevard.”

Also turning up are Paul Bettany as a rival mobster; David Thewlis as the Krays’ right-hand man; Christopher Eccleston as the London Yard detective on the case; Chazz Palminteri as an American mafia figure offering a business relationship, and danger; and Taron Egerton as Ronnie’s volatile boy toy.

It’s a wonderful-looking film, full of mod clothes and cars and tunes. It really does emulate the style of “Goodfellas,” with breezy scenes intermixed with bursts of horrific violence. These movies are not just trying to depict gangsters as interesting figures, but sex them up into iconic anti-heroes.

Extra features including a feature-length commentary track by Helgeland and a making-of documentary, “Creating the Legend.”

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Review: "Eddie the Eagle"

“Eddie the Eagle” looks at first glance like a standard sports underdog story. Indeed, it’s a virtual remake of “Cool Runnings,” the 1993 film about the Jamaican bobsled team that competed at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.

In fact, “Eddie” is set at the same time and place and involves another unlikely competitor who got his ticket punched to the Olympics only because of a complete absence of competition from their home country. With both the Jamaicans and British ski jumper Eddie Edwards, the goal was not to win but simply to earn a place in the competition.

They even recycle the made-up character of the washed-up, alcoholic athlete who reluctantly takes on the mantle of coach and mentor -- played by John Candy then and Hugh Jackman now.

But scratch but a little deeper, and you’ll find a story that’s actually about bullying, and overcoming it.

Director Dexter Fletcher and screenwriters Sean Macaulay and Simon Kelton see in Eddie, a humble working-class plasterer played by Taron Egerton, an awkward kid who’s been picked on his entire life, and smelts that negative energy into determination to prove everyone wrong.

“I was kicked off every team I ever tried out for even before I had a chance to prove myself,” Eddie says.

A lot of the fascination with Eddie, and the reason that gives power to his redemption, is that he’s homely. With coke-bottle glasses, pinched features, horsey teeth and strangely angled jaw, Eddie gets written off by most everyone he meets. He wore braces on his legs as a child, and there’s still a quality of ungainliness about him. Just standing still, he looks awkward.

Earnest and not bright enough to be called a nerd, Eddie is the guy everybody laughs at.

The British Olympic selection committee certainly laugh him off, declining to let him try out for the skiing team despite being one of the top amateurs in England. Later it’s the veteran ski jumpers from Finland or Norway who titter when Eddie decides to take on the sport. They’re all long, lean Vikings, and here’s this stumpy, half-blind guy who resembles the antithesis of athleticism.

But Eddie is determined, declining to listen even to his father, who orders him repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) to give up his Olympic dream and settle down in a stable trade. Mum (Jo Hartley) is more supportive, slipping him money and the even more valuable currency of absolute affection.

Eddie selects ski jumping because Britain hasn’t had one in Olympic competition in more than 50 years. That means there’s no community to train him up -- but also no one he has to try out against.

It might seem easy to be the best at something that no one else is doing. But this is a sport where mistakes lead not to disgrace, but a coffin.

Jackman plays Bronson Peary, a legendary former ski jumper who got kicked off the U.S. team for his drinking and carousing. Now the old lush who runs the snow plow, he becomes Eddie’s only friend and trainer. He doesn’t want the job, but reckons that if he doesn’t help, Eddie is liable to wind up dead.

Fletcher stages the jumps engagingly, showing us the soaring beauty and almost insane danger of the sport. The decathlon may be the measure of the finest overall athlete, but nobody routinely ends up with a broken body.

Egerton, who played second fiddle to Colin Firth in last year’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” gets more of a chance to shine here as the gullible but sweet Eddie. He shows us how this remarkable young man turned derision into cheers, and how triumph does not necessarily mean receiving a medal.

Review: "Testament of Youth"

"Testament of Youth" is a memoir of the dead; like the ghosts it chases the film is haunting,  beautiful, and transparent.

At the time of its publication nearly a century ago, the book by Vera Brittain was a very big deal, launching her writing career and status as a leading 20th century pacifist. She followed it up with other "Testament" memoirs, but the first one covering her young life and the horrors of World War I was the most indelible.

It's a well-crafted film -- director James Kent has a painterly eye for landscapes, and knows how to juxtapose backgrounds with inner turmoil of the characters. His career has been spent entirely in British television, but he seems to appreciate the scale of the big screen and uses it to strong effect.

The screenplay by Juliette Towhidi attempts to pack years of Vera's life into two hours, including a young proto-feminist convincing the world she deserves to study at Oxford, the strains of romantic and familial love, and the sweeping terror of the war ripping through it all.

The result is a film that feels both hurried and languorous.

The best thing about it is Alicia Vikander as Vera. You may remember her playing a self-aware robot in "Ex Machina," and she shows a similar mix of vulnerability and sturdy determination in this role. Her Vera is fully-formed, with shadings and subtleties.

The rest of the roster doesn't fare so well. Other figures slide in and out of Vera's picture frame, catching our attention for a while but moving on without much visceral impact.

I admired the romantic imagery and themes of the early going. In an early pivotal scene, Vera walks down a country road with three beautiful boys to keep her company. They are young, vibrant, full of life and the cockiness of English upper-class privilege. We know instantly that their flesh will become gruel for the machinery of war.

The primary relationship is with Roland Leighton (Kit Harington from "Game of Thrones"), a budding writer like Vera. He takes an instant shine to her fiery sense of independence and prodigious talents, though she has to be convinced he's not a commonplace cad.

Her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) is a scamp with a noble streak, arguing to their parents (Dominic West and Emily Watson) that Vera deserves a chance to study at Oxford, too. Victor Richardson (Colin Morgan) is the quiet, well-meaning friend Edward would like to set her up with.

The story follows Vera's journey to college -- Miranda Richardson turns up as a demanding headmistress. But the grim tide of warfare rolls in, and everything becomes predictably tragic.

I appreciated what this film was trying to do more than how it went about doing it. The story held few surprises for me; it always seemed like the next steps of Vera's dark journey are telegraphed, so we know which way she will turn even before she realizes it herself.

Alicia Vikander is young actress to watch, a fierce emotional and intellectual presence onscreen. Her lush portrayal, though, does not negate the fact that this paean to the dead is too often lifeless and insensible.

Video review: "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

A bit of charm and a lot of smash-mouth, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” was one of 2015’s earliest, and best, surprises.

This super-spy thriller/comedy operates as both a send-up and celebration of the 007 genre. Colin Firth plays Harry Hart, aka Galahad, a member of the sophisticated and ultra-secret spy agency knows as the Kingsmen. They prefer to do their bidding beneath the veil of anonymity, using all sorts of cool gadget hidden inside their signature dapper suits and eyeglasses.

Harry recruits rough-and-tumble street scamp Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) to be his protégé, and the story is framed around the familiar training and initial missions of the new guy. It seems some nefarious force is taking out the Kingsmen one by one, so graduation will have to come early.

The bad guy is a Steve Jobs techie type, deliciously played by Samuel L. Jackson – a combination of computer nerd, gangster and maniacal villain. His henchwoman has two prosthetic legs outfitted with swords to dice up her victims.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn, “Kingsman” has got terrific action scenes and also terribly funny ones. It’s a smart and energetic flick that evinces a tone somewhere between a smirk and a gasp. This is a movie that makes fun of spy movies, but loves them, too.

Video extras are pretty decent. There’s a gallery of photos of sets, props and behind-the-scenes peeks. There are also six making-of documentary featurettes: “Panel to Screen: The Education Of A 21st Century Super-Spy,” “Heroes And Rogues,” “Style All His Own,” “Tools Of The Trade,” “Breathtakingly Brutal” and “Culture Clash: The Comic Book Origins Of The Secret Service.”

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Review: "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

Matthew Vaughn, the talented young filmmaker behind "Kick-Ass" and "X-Men: First Class," dropped out of directing last summer's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" to make this movie. In other words, he passed on a sure thing to make a film adaptation of a comic book hardly anyone has heard of about British super-spies, which is being released in the cinematic wasteland known as February.

Some might call that move questionable -- including Vaughn's agents, no doubt.

Then he went and did something even more dubious: he changed the name of the movie, based on the graphic novel "The Secret Service" by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar, to add the "Kingsman" moniker, and switched the story around so the spies all wear similar natty suits. He even commissioned a line of "Kingsman" clothing from a high-end clothier, so you can affect the same stylish look you saw star Colin Firth wearing.

(Want the wristwatch? It's only $24,430!)

Which essentially renders the entire movie an exercise in brash product placement. I'd be tempted to be disgusted, if the film weren't so dashingly, gleefully superb.

"Kingsman: The Secret Service" is a heaping squirt of hot sauce in the cinema calendar's equivalent of the salad course. It's a daffy, dizzy send-up of the James Bond genre that nonetheless checks off the list of everything we love about super-spy flicks.

It's got a suave, charismatic leading man (Firth), outstandingly staged action scenes, crazy gadgets, a mad global plot, and a terrifically strange villain who maintains a running commentary on the stupidity of movie villains. (Without, apparently, realizing that he is one.)

The set-up is that young Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton), a Cockney street tough, is recruited by the Kingsmen via Harry Hart (Firth), aka Galahad, who once had his life saved by Eggsy's dad. Harry has a cool intro scene where he takes out an entire pub full of thugs who want the lad's head using only his umbrella -- which, to be fair, has all sorts of super-power functions like stopping bullets when opened.

(If you think that's neat, wait'll you see what the watch can do.)

Soon Eggsy is going through super-spy school, competing with a bunch of high-class wankers to see who can claim the only open slot in the Kingsmen ranks. Or Kingswomen -- there are a couple of highly competent female recruits, too, including the resourceful Roxy (Sophie Cookson), who takes a shine to Eggsy's rough edges. Merlin (Mark Strong) is the veteran taskmaster and outfitter, while Arthur (Michael Caine) is the wise old leader.

Harry takes on Eggsy's tutelage personally, teaching him how to dress and behave and, above all, remain discreet. The Kingsmen are a privately funded intelligence agency, and take pride in having their exploits remaining unknown. "A gentleman's name should appear in the paper three times: when he's born, when he marries and when he dies," he instructs.

The heavy is Richmond Valentine, a ridiculously powerful tech billionaire who gives away his merchandise and Internet service for free, because he has a dastardly plot to... well, I won't spoil. Suffice to say his plan has a certain liberal Machiavellian purity, enough to convince most of the planet's prime movers and shakers to sign on.

Valentine is played by Samuel L. Jackson in a performance that is deliciously over the top... or under the top, or somewhere completely sideways of the top. He sprays his sibilants in a mighty lisp, dresses in slanted hats and neon pastels like a ghetto bopper who hit the lottery, and grows girlishly nauseous at even the hint of violence, despite setting quite a tidal wave of it in motion.

His henchwoman is, if possible, even more exotic. Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) has two prosthetic legs, the kind used in running known as blades, except hers are also outfitted with actual blades, which she uses to slice and dice her foes while spinning through the air with athletic aplomb. She makes Oddjob with his killer top hat seem positively pedestrian.

Co-written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman, "Kingsman: The Secret Service" maintains a careful tone. It's incredibly funny, yet the gruesome fight scenes have weight and kinetic punch. Jackson's scoundrel is simultaneously laughable and chilling. This is a pastiche, mockery and homage to spy movies all wrapped in one well-tailored package.