Rocketeer

I've always surprised when people don't like this movie. It was one of my favorites at the time, and it has aged very well. It's a real "retro 30's" picture, like "The Shadow", instead of being a modern reinterpretation of such movies like the Indiana Jones films (which I also like very much).

The reviews cover the plot enough, and there are no real surprises here, but it's great family fun. My kids really love this movie, and I end up watching it every year or two, and I have never tired of it. When it came out there were apparently sequels planned, but it got killed at the box office by T2, which ran over everything that summer, so Disney never did anything with the show. They have recycled the atmosphere and the music in the "Soaring over California" ride at DCA, and I have to say it always makes me wistful that the movie never got a sequel.

By the way, the movie doesn't follow the comics that closely, which I don't mind, but if you are a purist and a fan of the "graphic novels", you might keep that in mind.

This movie has the tendency to fly off the screen at you, especially if you saw it on the big screen like I did. I was 9 years old when the Rocketeer came out, and after seeing it I couldn't help but day dream about flying, and winning over the girl. Of course I tended to have the same day dreams after watching Superman the movie. But this film is a little different. It seemed more believable to me, as a kid, in that it incorporated some semi historical facts with the story line. I believe it to be one of Disney's finnest films, perhaps a modern epic. It's one of those films you've got to watch at least once a year. However I do have a question concerning it, "How did the Rocketeer manage with all those flames blasting at his ass?"

In 1938, in Los Angeles, the pilot Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell) crashes his plane after being hit in the air in a shoot-out between gangsters and FBI agents in a car chase; completely broken, his best friend and mechanics A. 'Peevy' Peabody (Alan Arkin) tries to fix an old plane to raise some money in an exhibition show. However, Cliff finds a package hidden by one of the gangsters with a rocket with belts and they find that the device allows man to fly. Meanwhile, his beloved girlfriend and aspirant actress Jenny Blake (Jennifer Connelly) succeeds in an audition to make a small part in a movie of the great actor Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton) that is ranked the third in box-offices. During a flight exhibition, the mechanic Malcolm (Eddie Jones) has an accident, and Cliff uses the rocket to save him, being called Rocketeer by the public. With his picture in the front page of the newspaper, Cliff is chased by the FBI, the gangsters and German spies that abduct Jenny and forces Cliff to rescue her.

"Rocketeer" is a delightful adventure that recalls those classics from the old times of Hollywood. There is a handsome hero, a gorgeous heroine, gangsters, Nazi spies, betrayals, in a pace of cartoons with a magnificent art decoration, cars and costumes recreating Hollywood in the late 30's. The story has great lines and uses real characters, like Clark Gable and Howard Hughes, in fictional situations. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Rocketeer"

A great action adventure film from 1991 that proves to be enormous fun.

They don't make them like this any more.

This movie had a lot of hype around it before it was released. So much, I think, that many people were disappointed when it finally arrived in theaters. There were posters galore and rumors that Jennifer Connelly and Bill Campbell were dating, etc., etc.

It's too bad, as it's a nifty little film with LOTS of special little touches. What I really appreciated were wonderful little homages to the 1930s and 1940s--such as showing Campbell flying a Gee Bee Racer (how they did this scene I don't know), extensive Art Deco styling in the movie, the zeppelin and the villain on the zeppelin that was made to look exactly like Rondo Hatton--a very seldom talked about actor who starred in just a handful of horror-suspense movies of that era. After all, how many would remember Hatton and the Gee Bee Racer? I like these little touches.

Aside from all this, it's a good film. Great, maybe not, but very different and a nice tribute to the Commander Cody films (which featured a jet packed hero in movie serials).