Brooke (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
betweensunandmoon) wrote2018-06-15 09:22 am
betweensunandmoon) wrote2018-06-15 09:22 am
Movie Review: The Rocketeer (1991)
The Rocketeer is a movie without delusions of grandeur, which I liked. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is, which is refreshing. Doesn't change the fact that it's thoroughly uninspired.
Timothy Dalton's performance as the villainous Nazi spy is easily the best part of this half-baked mess, but I'd be lying if I said that his character being an obvious Errol Flynn expy didn't ruin the movie for me. Add a charisma-free performance from Bill Campbell as the main character and a chemistry-less romance between him and Jennifer Connelly as his love interest, and there's not much for me to like about The Rocketeer.
(I don't think it's a coincidence that Campbell resembles River Phoenix as young Indiana Jones. Oh, and Valentine is a rip-off of Oddjob from Goldfinger.)
The music is good but overused--every single scene is accompanied by a dramatic score, making it hard to differentiate between the more important and less important moments. The story wants to be Raiders of the Lost Ark with planes and doesn't quite succeed. The heart is nonexistent, unless you count the heart that Dalton puts into being just over-the-top enough. He's obviously enjoying himself, and I like that in an actor, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he saves the movie, though he does come close. No one else seems to be having as much fun as he is, though. I certainly wasn't.
Rating: 1.5/5 stars. (I docked half a star out of spite.)
Timothy Dalton's performance as the villainous Nazi spy is easily the best part of this half-baked mess, but I'd be lying if I said that his character being an obvious Errol Flynn expy didn't ruin the movie for me. Add a charisma-free performance from Bill Campbell as the main character and a chemistry-less romance between him and Jennifer Connelly as his love interest, and there's not much for me to like about The Rocketeer.
(I don't think it's a coincidence that Campbell resembles River Phoenix as young Indiana Jones. Oh, and Valentine is a rip-off of Oddjob from Goldfinger.)
The music is good but overused--every single scene is accompanied by a dramatic score, making it hard to differentiate between the more important and less important moments. The story wants to be Raiders of the Lost Ark with planes and doesn't quite succeed. The heart is nonexistent, unless you count the heart that Dalton puts into being just over-the-top enough. He's obviously enjoying himself, and I like that in an actor, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he saves the movie, though he does come close. No one else seems to be having as much fun as he is, though. I certainly wasn't.
Rating: 1.5/5 stars. (I docked half a star out of spite.)