| |
Plot |
This is the story of how Cliff, a pilot, because the hero known as the Rocketeer. The film starts off with Cliff test flying a new plane that he is going to enter in a national race. Do to no fault of his own the plane crash lands and is lost beyond repair destroying the fuel truck of the local business man. In order to pay for this debt Cliff agrees to fly another plane in the air show that this business runs. When Cliff inspects this plane he finds a rocket pack in one of its seats. With the help of his friend Peevy (Alan Arkin) he learns to use this rocket pack to save someone’s life. Meanwhile two different fractions are searching for this rocket pack. One group is the FBI and the other group is a bunch of mobsters that were hired by Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton), a Hollywood actor. |
| |
Character Development |
Cliff (Bill Campbell) learns what it takes to become a hero, but he doesn’t have to do any soul searching to do it. He doesn’t have to sacrifice anything or face any real trials and in the end he is pretty much the same guy he was at the start of the film. Jenny (Jennifer Connelly) does make a more noticeable change. She had stardust in her eyes at the beginning of the story, but by its conclusion she had a different perspective on Hollywood. |
|
Acting |
The acting was really brilliant in this film. All the players reach high marks all the way down to the bottom of the cast. I particularly enjoyed Bob Leeman’s role of W.C. Fields. The acting is on the pinnacle of any current comic book hero movie that you may choose to see, with all the black and white bad guys and heroics and colorful characters you can ask for. There are mobsters with hearts of gold, greedy nickel nursing business men, historical figures, intrepid FBI agents, and a bunch of cartoon Nazis to shot at. This is art mirroring art; Hollywood’s looking back onto itself circa 1940. |
| |
Overview |
This picture could have been made into a sequel. It had all the right ingredients and there was even a seed at the end that hinted that this could be a possibility. Yet I believe the talk was that this picture went over budget and the studio didn’t get a good return on their investment so a sequel wasn’t in the cards. Still there should have been one. This was movie magic. It had the feel of no other comic book hero movie. Like Batman the Rocketeer didn’t have any super natural powers. He could fly, but only because he was wearing a rocket pack, only this was not like any recent Batman film. There was a certain ease and finesse here that didn’t go overboard in the telling of it. I don’t think the creators of the Rocketeer would have Batman speaking almost unintelligible or have him destroying squad cars and rooftops. |
| |