Rocketman

“Rocketman,” about the life and music of Elton John, is a formulaic, paint-by-numbers biopic. It actually begins at a moment of crucial emotion and flux in the singer’s life, then backtracks to show us how he ended up there. It is a tried-and-true jukebox musical fantasia, seemingly prepackaged for the Broadway stage, packed with toe-tapping sing-alongs you’ve known and loved for decades. Songs spring from significant moments in John’s life, or so we’re led to believe.

Director: Dexter Fletcher

Planet of the Humans

“How long do you think we humans have?” asks filmmaker Jeff Gibbs to a series of random people at the beginning of his environmental-themed documentary, Planet of the Humans. That the question has since taken on a particularly sinister edge in the wake of COVID-19 is but one of the many ironies of the film made available for free on YouTube for 30 days, courtesy of executive producer Michael Moore.

Although its release was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Planet of the Humans delivers a dystopian view of the environmental movement that the film posits has been taken over by corporate interests.

Director: Jeff Gibbs

Eating Up Easter

A native of the place strangers call Easter Island amplifies a call for self-rescue in “Eating Up Easter,” Sergio M. Rapu’s eco-themed documentary. The first feature-length film from a TV veteran who lives in the U.S. but still has family ties to the island, it has much in common with an obscure 2014 doc called “Yorgos,” which looked specifically on how the arrival of a Hollywood crew changed the island in the early ‘90s: Both present an ambivalent view of outsiders’ impact, lamenting the environmental cost of rising wealth while clearly not wanting to see that money disappear.

Director: Sergio M. Rapu