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The makers of “Elton John: Never Too Late” correctly didn’t attempt to be completists. After a half-century-plus of touring in addition to recording roughly eleventy thousand albums and musicals, making an attempt a whole survey of Elton John’s output in a single movie is a idiot’s errand. However, the movie finally ends up masking sufficient of his profession that the ensuing gaps are extra noticeable than they need to be. Viewers will depart the film with a good-enough appreciation of his work, however not essentially any deeper an understanding of the person than may very well be gleaned from viewing “Rocketman.”
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The documentary is ostensibly bracketed by a pair of large concert events at Dodger Stadium. One was an unprecedented two-nighter by the period’s greatest rock star in entrance of 110,000 folks in 1975. The different was in 2022 as a part of his last tour, “Farewell Yellow Brick Road.” In between these tentpoles, the movie interweaves parallel storylines, one inevitably extra attention-grabbing than the opposite.
In the primary, we get a fast-paced and gripping pocket bio of John because the younger artist bursting out of his repressed English childhood. This rockets from his early profession because the classically educated however rock-obsessed pianist who was backing bands like The Drifters within the Nineteen Sixties to the insanely productive and fame-generating 5 years main as much as the primary Dodger Stadium present. Charming snippets from John’s interviews with biographer Alexis Petridis present witty and, at instances, wistful narration.
People may understandably keep in mind the 1975 live performance primarily for the Bob Mackie-designed Dodgers uniform John wore. While that outfit’s sequined explosion of sparkle is understandably iconic—it says every part one must know concerning the period’s full-bore maximalist frenzy—its place within the cultural pantheon has sadly considerably overshadowed the live performance itself. What little we see of it right here, primarily a rip-snorting cowl of “Pinball Wizard,” is electrifying and positively deserves its personal full movie therapy. Some different bits of hardly ever (and generally by no means) seen live performance footage present John on the high of his sport, fusing Little Richard and Winifred Atwell’s no-holds-barred piano enjoying with area rock pomp and strut. In one of many movie’s most poignant moments, we see John fortunately getting upstaged by John Lennon, who performs with him in entrance of a thunderously joyous Madison Square Garden crowd in 1974, Lennon’s first time on an American stage in eight years, and his final.
The second storyline tracks John from metropolis to metropolis on the 2022 tour. Unsurprisingly, there may be much less to marvel at right here, aside from the parade of exuberantly gaudy outfits (the glasses alone deserve a devoted gallery show). Trying to keep away from what he calls the “bubble,” the remoted caves of sycophancy and medicines that swallowed stars like Elvis Presley entire (and practically captured him through the cocaine-fueled Nineteen Seventies and ‘80s), John presents as extra actively curious than one may think. We see him bringing acts like The Linda Lindas onto his podcast as a means of giving them publicity since, in his phrases, all modern-day radio stations play is” pap.”
The spirit of the movie is essentially that of well-earned sentimentality. John’s recollections of darkish stretches in his life (emotionally and bodily abusive childhood, one fairly violent grownup relationship, emotions of empty worthlessness) clarify the drive behind his present want to be a boring outdated dad elevating two fussed-over little boys.
But like many documentaries about late-career artists casting an eye fixed again over the arc of their inventive lives, “Elton John: Never Too Late” has the texture of a fastidiously packaged piece of promotional media. This is hardly sudden since John’s husband, David Furnish, is credited as co-director alongside R.J. Cutler (“Belushi”). You can think about what sort of kaleidoscopic fantasia might need resulted if John had given a filmmaker freedom to roam throughout his archives as Brett Morgen did with David Bowie for the disappointing but wildly formidable “Moonage Daydream.”
In comparability, “Elton John: Never Too Late” comes throughout as a protected and well-tooled piece of a fastidiously managed relationship with Disney, which streamed the 2022 Dodger Stadium present stay. But in contrast to what a streaming service like Apple TV has completed with sure iconic rock acts (Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back,” Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground”), the top end result right here is extra dutiful than thrilling or revealing. [C+]
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