Handsome everyman good guy? Check. Insanely hot but wholesome good girl? Check. Smarmy bad guy? Check. Evil ‘really’ bad guy? (Well how about Nazis?!?) Check.
Welcome one and all to Disney’s The Rocketeer. A film which follows the formula so closely it needs a restraining order. As did the million or so young pre-teen boys that Jennifer Connelly fast-tracked to puberty after seeing this film…
I’ve been reading a lot of ‘first reader’ books lately with my son, and I think the simplicity of this film lends itself to the concept – and my writing style to the mono-syllabic approach – so here we go.
Clifford the Rocketeer
Clifford is a pilot. He finds a jetpack. A special rocket powered jetpack. Let us call it a rocketpack shall we?
Clifford is surprised.
Clifford wears the rocketpack. It makes him fly. He likes to fly. He flies with the pack and saves a falling man. Everyone cheers for Clifford. He is proud.
The men who lost the rocket-pack are sad. They look for it. Bad guys look for it too. They want it.
The men try to find Clifford. They ask Clifford’s friend Jenny if she knows where Clifford is. Jenny doesn’t know where Clifford is. The men are sad.
Clifford finds out that the men are talking to his friend Jenny. They won’t let her go. Clifford is sad.
Clifford puts on the rocketpack and flies around. He beats the bad guys. He saves Jenny. Everyone is happy. The bad guys are sad.
Some guy gives Clifford a plane. It is fast. Clifford and Jenny are happy.
The end. (Good reading kids.)
In reality The Rocketeer has bugger all going for it. If it weren’t for Jennifer Connelly in her supple uber-prime there would be nothing at all to take away (and don’t think that Disney didn’t awkwardly chuck a couple of amazingly clumsy perv-shots in there to showcase the assets).
Clifford the hero is so bland that now a few days later I can’t recall what he looked like, not even his hair colour. He only gets to wear the damn pack a few times as well, yet somehow manages superhero status by saving a grand total of one guy until the climactic scenes – which are dull by the way.
And Timothy Dalton is really the only guy to differentiate himself from the cast lifted straight from a Dick Tracy comic. Timothy Dalton!
Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. If you ask me the only superpower here is Jennifer Connelly’s ability to fill out a dress. (By the way, I am proudly one of the ‘fast-tracked’.) The rest is entirely forgettable.
