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Two things will help you enjoy this movie immensely: A love of nostalgia, and a bit of patience. When it comes to the former, this movie has everything: Hollywood in its golden age, German spies, G-men and Gangsters (the Tony Soprano kind, not the Snoop Dogg kind), elaborate nightclubs, big band music, a battle aboard a high-flying Zeppelin, and best of all, a hero who flies around like a bat out of hell with a jet-pack strapped to his back. As for the having patience part - well the film does take a while to get the action revved up, but it's well worth the wait. Many people thought it was too slow, or that the hero was a chump because he had so many jet-pack related mishaps and wasn't a natural like Superman. Personally, I like the fact that during his first few times with the rocket he kept crashing into everything. It made him more believable, an everyday Joe who suddenly gets a set of wings - if he can only learn how to use them.

Our hero is stunt-pilot Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell, who unfortunately dropped off the radar after this film, although he at least got to shack up with his hottie co-star). The place is Los Angeles, the time 1938. Hollywood is at its zenith, the specter of war with the Nazis is a shadow looming on the horizon, and Cliff and his friend/mentor Peevy (Alan Arkin) are getting their newest stunt plane ready for a national flying competition. Meanwhile, Cliff's girlfriend Jenny (Jennifer Connely, the aforementioned hottie who also faded into obscurity for a long time after this film) is a struggling young actress trying to make it in Hollywood, one bit-part at a time.

Through a series of mishaps, Cliff and Peevy crash their valuable plane, but come into posession of a mysterious dual-rocket backpack. They don't know where it came from, but they soon find out that both the feds and the mob are looking for it and are willing to kill for it. While they decide what they are going to do with it (Cliff wants to use it to make some "real" money, Peevy wants to give it back), Cliff is forced to use it to rescue a pilot in trouble during an airshow. He straps on the jetpack and a goofy-looking but somehow cool helmet which not only keeps him from getting his head bashed in when he crashes into things, but serves as a handy superhero identity concealer. When he asks Peevy "How do I look?" his friend replies "Like a hood ornament". That line sums up this movie - Yeah, it looks kind of goofy, but enjoy it in the spirit which it was intended, and you'll have one hell of a ride.

Cliff barely manages to rescue the pilot, while hundreds of awe-struck witnesses cheer him on. He quickly makes headlines, and tinsel town is aquiver with rumors of "The Rocketeer". Everyone knows about him, except for his girlfriend Jenny. When he tells her "I have a secret. I'm the Rocketeer!" she bluntly responds "The Rock-a-who?"

One man who does not share Hollywood's enthusiasm for the Rocketeer's antics is film star Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton), an obvious parody of Erroll Flynn. Sinclair wants the rocket pack very badly indeed, and when he overhears bit-player Jenny and her boyfriend Cliff talking about the rocket while on the set of his latest film, he immediately sets out to seduce the young actress in an attempt to get to Cliff and his coveted jet-pack.

When the feds finally track down Cliff and Peevy, they are taken to meet Howard Hughes himself (Terry O'Quinn) who informs them that he invented the prototype, and that Mafia capo Eddie Valentine (Paul Sorvino)is working for a German spy ring who want the rocket so that they can create and army of airborne jet-pack troops to swoop down on America like a plague of jackbooted locusts.

"The Rocketeer" lives and breathes with the spirit of the old adventure pulp comics or Saturday matinee serials. Its charms will probably be lost on most of this jaded generation, and that's a shame, because it's a great flick. At least someone out there liked it, because the popular PC game "Crimson Skies" (as well as its upcoming movie incarnation) was obviously inspired by several scenes in the Rocketeer. Hopefully that film, which will surely boast a huge effects budget, imposing battle-Zeppelins, and tricked-out fighter planes, will inspire some retrospective interest in this under-appreciated classic.

Although the film was a tad short on action, and its credibility gets stretched pretty thin in places (why doesn't Cliff ever run out of fuel or get his legs burnt off?) the story is solid and enjoyable and the visual effects, now ten years old, still hold up quite nicely. Arkin, Dalton, O'Quinn, and Sorvino all give great performances, and while the acting from Bill Campbell (not the "Evil Dead" guy, by the way - that's BRUCE Campbell) and Jennifer Connely isn't quite as stellar, their charm and good looks are more than enough to get them by - that, and Connely's amazing rack. "The Rocketeer" also features the coolest explanation for how the "HOLLYWOODLAND" sign was shortened to just "HOLLYWOOD".

I still want my Rocketeer franchise, and my goddamn Rocketeer Happy meal. But most of all, I want one of those jet packs.

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originally posted: 11/25/01 18:34:05
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