Just perfect...

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

As a fan of classic Hollywood cinema, how can I not love The Rocketeer? I delight in all those old Hollywood references, from lines such as "You stood behind Myrna Loy with a bowl of grapes", to a movie set very similar to the castle interior from The Adventures of Robin Hood. I even find myself thinking this film's protagonist has pretty sweet life going for him; he gets to fly planes all day, has a hot aspiring actress girlfriend and lives in 1930's Hollywood. The cast of The Rocketeer have that cartoony look which stars of the 1930's possessed; even one of the film's villains is modelled after Rondo Hatton, a not well known b-movie player with a uniquely disfigured face. The film also provides a nostalgic look at the golden age of aviation; ah for the days when aviation was a gentleman's pursuit, back before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch try and jet off to Raleigh-Durham.Why do these pulp serial adventures keep failing at the box office (The Shadow, The Phantom, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow). Of course The Rocketeer's lack of box office success cancelled plans for an intended trilogy. Are audiences just not interested in these kinds of films, or do they just keep getting poorly marketed. Either way, this is why we can't have nice things.Timothy Dalton is the one of who steals the show as the Errol Flynn- esque Neville Sinclair. Dalton really is one of the last of his kind, as a Shakespearean trained actor who can play these types debonair, hammy villains, both here and his role in Hot Fuzz. Interestingly Errol Flynn himself has had (hopefully untrue) posthumous accusations of being Nazi sympathiser. What's scarier than Nazis? The Rocketeer has the answer: Rocket propelled Nazis who can travel across the Atlantic on their jet packs.My only complaint with The Rocketeer and the only aspect which prevents me from awarding the movie with the mighty 10, is the lead protagonist Cliff Secord played by Billy Campbell, whom I find not to be terribly interesting. While it could be argued he's supposed to be dull in keeping with the tradition of B-movie serials having bland leading men. Still I would rather have a more charismatic screen presence but when a movie still manages to be this much fun despite this nor do I ever care in the slightest as why the rocket blasts to not burn of the back of Cliff's legs, it's defiantly doing something right.

PlotThis 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 man 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 DevelopmentCliff (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.ActingThe 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.OverviewThis 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.

When it first came out, I remember enjoying the first 30 minutes of this movie, then finding it a bit slow. This time around, I found myself appreciating the tribute aspects a bit more and enjoyed it in its entirety. You'll like this movie a lot more if you know about the era and the real life counterparts of the characters that are referenced and portrayed. Without that knowledge, the movie might appear far more naive than it actually is. The acting is generally spot on for the tribute tone of the movie and both the leads are outrageously good-looking people. If memory serves I developed a slight crush on Ms. Connelly after my original viewing of this movie. I'm sure I wasn't alone. I'm not sure it didn't happen this time. This was filmed long before she joined the Hollywood cult of the anorexic.The FX are nicely done and the science is perfectly out of whack considering the genre that the film mimics. All in all, I appreciate this movie and its honoring the past without becoming a schmaltz-fest. It's an action movie done in a thoughtful manner. I Like It.

The Rocketeer is a surprisingly good action/adventure film with wonderful pulp nostalgia. The film is based on an old comic book character and that's exactly how it feels, in the best possible way. It simply just reeks that old American nostalgia where men were men and woman had enough sass and spunk to power whole steamboats.For me it's the characters that make this film. Timothy Dalton plays the perfect guile villain, Neville Sinclair, the most charismatically slimy Hollywood lead actor of all time. Every time he flashed that billion dollar toothpaste smile of his, you just want to punch the guy, while hiding your girlfriend and shaking his hand. In a sense, a villain you love to hate and hate to love. Wonderful role performance, easily the best in the whole film.I was also pleasantly surprised by the side characters. Alan Arkin's Peevy Peabody is what I would imagine a poor and more down to earth Tony Stark to be like. A genius engineer, yet his presence fills the screen and when he starts talking, you stop and listen. The same with Jennifer Connelly's Jenny Blake, but in a whole different way. I can see why Neville falls for the girl instantly, and not just because she has some information that he wants. I mean that face and that smile... Good heavens.Unfortunately pretty much the only character that did very little to me is the main character, The Rocketeer himself, played by Billy Campbell. He has this whole nice neighborhood guy thing going for him, but it's a bit too nice, if you follow. The man leaves very small impression and isn't quite identifiable or unique enough to stand apart from other adventure stock characters just like him.But luckily the rest of the cast and the rest of the movie as a whole are more than capable to keep your interests raised and to provide you with a charming adventure with surprisingly decent special effects for their time, some great action sequences and that whole early 20th century charisma. If you like pulp settings, great adventure films and charismatic actors, this is definitely a film worth checking out.