THE ROCKETEER (1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Oddly, not only was Dave Stevens' ROCKETEER comic optioned not long after its publication-- in fact, not too much later than Hollywood began poking around at the BATMAN franchise-- it was one of the first options from an "alternative" comics publisher (i.e., "not Marvel or DC") to make it to the silver screen. 

Curiously, ROCKETEER's script was produced by the writing team of Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, who had in the previous year developed a very BATMAN-centric version of DC's comics FLASH character. ROCKETEER, however, charts a course opposite to that of Burton's BATMAN, producing, in accordance with the reputation of the Walt Disney company, a kid-friendly version of the Stevens concept, pruned of the few "adult" aspects of the original. When I saw ROCKETEER in the day, I recall being a little neutral toward it. But I think the movie-- directed by Joe (CAPTAIN AMERICA THE FIRST AVENGER) Johnston-- has aged better than a lot of 1990s action-fare.

The plot is refreshingly linear. Stunt pilot Cliff Secord (Billy Campbell) becomes the accidental recipient of a secret government project, passed on to him during an altercation between the thieves who stole the item and the FBI agents seeking to recover it. Said project turns out to be a rocket-pack, which Cliff's mechanic buddy Peevy (Alan Arkin) adapts for use with a flight-suit, complete with a helmet. Prior to finding out that the pack was stolen, Cliff experiments with the idea of using the outfit in order to make money with stunt performances, but he ends up using it to rescue a pilot from a malfunctioning plane. But this puts the newly christened "Rocketeer" in the crosshairs of both the government agents and the gangsters who stole the pack. The gangsters' immediate boss is Valentine (Paul Sorvino), but the one paying for their services is movie star Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton), secretly working for the Nazi cause. Sinclair, who didn't appear in the comic, was modeled on Errol Flynn, who had been posthumously accused of being a Nazi agent by a book of dubious facticity. Even more oddly, Sinclair has a brutish henchmen (Tiny Ron) who's made up to look like the minor 1940s horror-star Rondo Hatton.

In addition, Cliff's girlfriend Jenny (Jennifer Connelly) is an aspiring actress who's in the cast of Sinclair's current movie. Sinclair learns that Cliff has the rocket pack and tries to use Jenny as a pawn to get the prize, though the script manages to work in a jealousy angle for the hero. Feminists might be disappointed that Jenny is largely a "girl hostage" for most of the movie, though she does have one nice moment where she kicks a Nazi agent out of a dirigible.

The FX, still a long way from the supremacy of CGI, are handsomely mounted, and the Rocketeer has a particularly good scene fighting Valentine's armed thugs in a ritzy nightclub. But the best thing about the movie is that it recaptures a vision, not of what the 1940s were really like, but how moviemakers of that time wanted to depict their time. Johnston, Bilson and DeMeo may have been under instructions to keep their adaptation squeaky-clean, but for whatever reason, they produced a near-flawless image of a fantasy-forties, where no one bleeds after getting hit and even gangsters never use swear words. Their effort ended up being in some ways a homage to the Rocketman serials that inspired Stevens than did the original comic book.