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'Rocketman' 4K Blu-ray Review: I Guess That's Why They Call It The 4K Blus

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Film

Under normal circumstances, kicking off a (sort of) biopic in an addiction therapy session would set alarm bells ringing. In Rocketman, though, this is no normal therapy session, and it introduces no ordinary self-absorbed ‘tortured artist’ tale. 

Elton John (expertly portrayed by Taron Egerton) swaggers into this particular addicts meeting backlit by stage-show lighting and dressed in an insanely extravagant devil outfit, before sharing with the group not just one addiction but a whole list of them. Including shopping. All with a grim smile on his face, and an undercurrent of ‘screw you’ defiance even as he’s admitting that he knows things need to change.

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

In other words, far from introducing two hours of maudlin mid-life crisis retrospection, Rocketman’s opening scene sets you up perfectly for the wry, relatively unvarnished and generally unapologetic tone of what’s to follow. Where Bohemian Rhapsody worked mostly as a (brilliant) heartwarming eulogy to Freddie Mercury and his relationship with his band mates and fans, Rocketman is a more savage and direct portrayal of an individual life of  excess opened up to a boy of relatively humble origins by a combination of luck, drive and unfettered musical genius. 

Judging by the written Elton John introduction that ships with the 4K Blu-ray, together with John’s consistent willingness to send himself up while simultaneously celebrating his past (check out his extraordinary cameo in Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle), Rocketman’s honest but entertaining tone feels like it’s exactly what John wanted it to be.

The slickness with which director Dexter Fletcher manages to stitch together what in lesser hands might have felt like a disjointed, episodic film, meanwhile, confirms that his successes with Eddie The Eagle and Bohemian Rhapsody were no flukes. 

Personally I prefer Bohemian Rhapsody to Rocketman. Partly because Bohemian Rhapsody restricted its musical moments to studio or stage performances rather than introducing  song and dance numbers into the narrative, like Rocketman at times slightly awkwardly does. But also because Bohemian Rhapsody felt more focused and emotional. Maybe another way to look at it is that Bohemian Rhapsody feels more like a film, while Rocketman feels more like a high-end rehearsal for a musical stage play. 

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

That doesn’t stop Rocketman from delivering a highly entertaining, caustically witty, sometimes thoughtful but also sometimes unapologetically bonkers rollercoaster insight into one of rock and roll’s most exuberant and resilient stars. 

Release Details

Studio: Paramount

What you get: Region-free 4K Blu-ray disc, Region A/B/C HD Blu-ray, digital copy code

Extra features: Booklet containing a message from Elton John; Four extended musical sequences; 10 deleted and extended scenes; Sing along feature; Creative vision featurette; featurette on Egerton becoming Elton John; Production design and costuming featurette; Staging the musical numbers featurette; Studio sessions footage; Jukebox playback, where you skip straight to the songs.

Best Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos

HDR picture options: HDR10, Dolby Vision

HDR mastering data: MaxFALL 386 nits; MaxCLL 1000 nits

Key kit used for this review: Panasonic 65GZ1500, Samsung 65Q90R, Panasonic UB820, Oppo 205.

Picture quality

Rocketman’s 4K Blu-ray picture has apparently been derived from a 2K digital intermediate, created from 3.4k shooting footage. So we’re not talking about a film with any native 4K heritage. While the picture might not be absolute the sharpest seen on a 4K Blu-ray, though, you typically still feel like you’re watching a 4K experience. 

Helping the picture appear perhaps sharper and more detailed than it really is is its phenomenal cleanliness. There’s essentially zero grain or noise to stand between you and the film, putting you right there in the audience of John’s flamboyant shows, but also drawing you into Egerton’s performance in more intimate moments.

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

The ultra-clean look doesn’t seem to have anything to do with noise reduction, though. A more likely contributor is the fact that Paramount has seen fit to put the two-hour film onto a 100GB disc rather than a smaller 66GB one. This sees the picture bit-rate happily trundling along at around 70Mbps for most of the time, and I never saw it drop below 60Mbps. There’s the occasional 90Mbps peak, too. 

Compare this with Disney’s recent release of Avengers: Endgame (reviewed here), which was crammed onto a 66GB disc despite being three hours long. Here bit-rates typically tracked at just 40Mbps. And often dipped quite a bit lower.

The Rocketman 4K Blu-ray’s wide color use is fabulous, too. This is dazzlingly obvious right from the opening shot, as John’s red and orange devil outfit explodes off the screen against a bright white backdrop. The inevitable sequins on the suit have much more luster and variation on the 4K Blu-ray than they do on the HD Blu-ray too. Which is handy given that John wears spectacularly sparkly, gaudily colored outfits and accessories pretty much throughout the film.

The HDR10 master delivers a 1000-nit Maximum Content Light Level (MaxCLL) and a 386-nit Maximum Frame Average Light Level (MaxFALL). While it might have been nice to see the HDR10 master pushing for higher peaks than 1000 nits given the preponderance of sequins and glitter on show, the 1000/386-nit HDR balance does feel nicely judged for most of the film’s content, giving those occasional 1000-nit peaks plenty of room to literally shine. 

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

Certainly the HDR10 master still looks aggressive enough to make the HD Blu-ray feel dull by comparison - and if there’s one thing this film should never look, it’s dull.

Given the flamboyance of many of its visuals, Rocketman benefits more than most films from its Dolby Vision master (if you have the necessary Dolby Vision-capable TV and 4K Blu-ray player combination). There’s more luster to the peak whites and colors, and more precision and definition to the both the dramatic colors of John’s stage outfits and subtler stuff, such as skin tones and dark walls. The Bitch Is Back sequence is a particularly brilliant demonstration of Dolby Vision’s talents.

The Dolby Vision master also makes the film’s lighting feel more cinematic, for want of a better word - especially during interior sequences.

Black levels are excellent - rich but not overwhelming - with both the HDR10 and Dolby Vision masters.

One last thing worth pointing out is that the extreme clarity of the 4K master sometimes exposes a loss of focus at the picture’s edges caused, presumably, by the anamorphic lenses used during filming. Check out the shot of the Royal Academy of music at 11.21 for a particularly obvious example of this.

Sound quality

The 4K and HD Blu-ray’s both carry an excellent Dolby Atmos mix. This does a spectacular job of mixing Elton John’s music for an Atmos soundstage, aggressively incorporating the rear and height channels to fully immerse you in the songs in a way that makes you completely forget their vintage. It helps, of course, that Egerton actually recreated all of the songs performed in the film himself, rather than lip-synching to Elton John’s original vocal tracks, making it easier for the sound mixers to remix the music completely afresh for the Dolby Atmos generation.

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

The dynamic range is extreme during the musical interludes, too. There’s some seriously meaty bass at one end of the audio spectrum, plus lots of rich, harshness free detailing at the other. Best of all, the mid-range is massive, leaving bags of room for both the music and crowd reactions to ebb and swell. If you want to understand what people have been talking about when complaining about some of Disney’s compressed 4K Blu-ray Dolby Atmos mixes, compare Rocketman’s dynamic range with that of, say, Thor: Ragnarok.  

Dialogue and sung vocals are superbly implemented too, always sounding totally convincing even during the complex non-concert musical set pieces. The mix even uses a touch of vertical elevation to boost their presence in the mix from time to time. 

Also worth stressing is the mix’s sheer scale. The sound ‘bubble’ it presents is unusually large, pushing right to the extremes of your room. With the Rocketman song, in particular, you half expect your living room to blast off along with Elton.

The mix isn’t particularly busy between the songs, but it’s effective enough. Which leaves as my only audio complaint the way some of the incidental background songs feel a bit too aggressive, slightly distracting you from the dialogue you’re supposed to be focusing on.

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

Extra features

Aware of the film’s living room karaoke potential, Rocketman carries both a Jukebox feature that lets you skip straight to the film’s songs, and a Lyric companion mode so you can sing along with Egerton.

Fans of the music will also appreciate the extended cuts (introduced by director Dexter Fletcher) of four of the film’s musical numbers: The Bitch Is Back, Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting), Breaking Down The Walls of Heartache, and Honky Cat. These are all great fun, giving you essentially the full songs. Be warned, though, that the longer Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache cut includes footage that makes Egerton look scarily like Austin Powers. 

The extended songs are joined on the Blu-ray disc by 10 deleted or extended scenes, again introduced (rather pointlessly this time) by Fletcher. These are all again worth your time - especially the slightly awkward first one, showing more of John’s time at the Royal Academy of Music; the third and fourth ones showing more of John and Bernie in the early stages of their friendship, plus John’s girlfriend Arabella; a slightly hammy one showing the aftermath of John’s heart attack that includes the news story about a 13-year-old boy who got AIDS from a blood transfusion that John credits with changing his life; and a cute one in the launderette at John’s rehabilitation center.

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

The seven-minute featurette on the film’s creative vision up next is fascinating, featuring as it does great interview footage with John, David Furnish, producer Matthew Vaughn, Egerton and Fletcher, as well as some fun shooting footage.

The seven-minute documentary about Egerton’s transformation into Elton John, meanwhile, is fine as far as it goes - but it feels like it could have gone a lot further. Better, if you love the nitty gritty of film-making, is the nine-minute production design and costuming mini feature.

The 10-minute look at crafting the musical set pieces is worth your time too, thanks to its combination of fun interviews with the cast and crew and tons of behind the scenes shooting footage.

Photo: Rocketman, Paramount Pictures

Wrapping things up is a great featurette on the recording of the music for the film, with lots of footage of Egerton singing almost annoyingly well. 

Verdict

Paramount’s Rocketman 4K Blu-ray release fires on pretty much all cylinders. The film’s good, the AV presentation is strong, and the extras are entertaining and varied. Definitely one to add to the collection.

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