I don't normally do reviews of movies but I will make an exception for one of my favourite movies. I can't promise it'll be a good review or anything but if it turns out okay, maybe I will do some more.
Picture the scene. It's 1991, the only
good superhero films have been in the shape of the DC giants Superman
and Batman. Fantastic, considering the limitations of the time. Out
of left field comes Disney with the idea of making a film of the 1982
comic The Rocketeer. To my knowledge, the character was not greatly
known and only spanned 8 chapters total. Nevertheless, the Rocketeer
became a cult classic which embodied pulp comics and drew them into
the modern age. The general plot of the film is about a pilot called
Cliff Secord who is at the bottom, just doing low paying air shows
while building a plane that is capable of flying in the nationals. He
soon discovers a Rocket which had been stolen and stashed in his
hanger. Both the thieves and the American government want it back.
The film was directed by Joe Johnson
who is known as the director or art director for many films, such as
the original Star Wars trilogy, the first two Indiana Jones films,
Batteries not included, Pagemaster, Jumanji, Jurassic Park III, The
Wolfman, Captain America: The First Avenger and a fair few more. The
guy pretty much summed up a decent amount of my childhood.
James Horner did the music for the film
but I care not to run off a list of his work. Needless to say it's a
fantastic soundtrack. If the Topgun soundtrack captured the idea of
flying big powerful F-14s, then the Rocketeer soundtrack captures the
pace of the propeller engines that are present in the film.
As for actors in the film, it all fits
well in my opinion. Billy Campbell plays the lead role of Cliff
Secord and he feels great in the role, I must admit that I have not
seen any other films of his, other than the 1992 Dracula in which he
plays Quincey Morris. Even then, I did not know it was him. Jennifer
Connelly plays Jenny Blake and works really well, even though the
character is changed greatly from the original comic. Finally we have
Timothy Dalton as Neville Sinclair, the snobbish Hollywood star who
acts as a giant thorn in the side of Cliff throughout the film.
It's difficult to not sound biased
when writing about something one is passionate about so I’ll say
right from the start. This film is one of those films that varies
from great, to average, to terrible for people. Though I will say
that if you like this film, then you will most likely love it. It's
not deep and it doesn't have ground breaking special effects but they
have held up pretty well for an early 90s film. Hell the film doesn't
even have a ton of action. It is just an exciting film which taps the
will that people have always had to fly. A shallow comparison would
be Indiana Jones but with a Rocket pack. Either way they are both
pulp action films. A mostly dead genre that often gets pulled from
the cutting room floor just to fall back there again.
The film did poorly by Disney’s
expectations but did turn a profit. This was mostly, like Scott
Pilgrim, the fact they could not actually get people into the cinema
to watch it. There had been a planned sequel, with a concept that I
thought sounded amazing but alas, we will probably never see another
Rocketeer film.
I really suggest that everyone at least
see this film. Even if you just watch it when you feel like seeing a
laid back film with some guy flying about with a rocket pack. You can
take the film as that or you can see it as an action adventure which
almost rivals some of the newer marvel films. I'm going to take some
flak for this but I also think it's better than Tim Burton’s
Batman.
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