Movie Review: The Rocketeer (1991)

The movie stars Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton, Ed Lauter, Alan Arkin and Paul Sorvino.

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve seen this particular movie. However, it had been a while since I had watched the film in its entirety and, because of that, I recently recorded it when it was on one of my movie channels and watched it (over the course of three days) in the morning before work. After seeing the film from start to finish again, it remains one of my favorite comic-booked-inspired movies.

The thing I like about this movie is it doesn’t try to do anything overly complicated or unbelievable. The hero, Cliff (Campbell), doesn’t have any special powers or even anything that remotely resembles some sort of super weapon. All he has is a rocket pack, helmet and, eventually, a gun.

In fact, he doesn’t even really want to be a hero. He just chooses to do the right thing, especially when it means saving his girlfriend, Jenny (Connelly) from the clutches of actor/spy Neville Sinclair (Dalton) and his henchmen. This does make his character much easier to relate to and does keep the movie a little more exciting to watch.

Even the characters themselves are surprisingly grounded. A lot of times movies that are based on comic books tend to go a bit overboard with the characters. This one, again, kept things simple and the only character that even seems like he belongs in a comic book is the giant Lothar (Tiny Ron Taylor). Again, the fact the characters and the plot in general are somewhat believable and plausible does keep the movie much more interesting to watch.

I’m not normally a huge fan of movies that are inspired by comic books, but this one is definitely an exception to that. As I mentioned, I’ve seen it countless times already and will likely have to watch it again just so I can introduce my kids to it.

My Grade: A