IN DEFENSE OF
THE ROCKETEER

ACCUSATION: Corny

DEFENSE: Classic

20 years ago Walt Disney Pictures brought forth upon our summer movie screens an adaptation of Dave Steven’s graphic novel The Rocketeer with the same gusto marketing given to Dick Tracy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in previous years.

The movie wasn’t a total box-office dud (blockbusters like Robin Hood and City Slickers were still raking in the bucks), but it certainly wasn’t the hit Disney envisioned it would be.

Celebrated last night at the El Captain theatre in Hollywood, The Rocketeer a mere 20 years later not only still holds up, but serves as both a celebration and reminder that “they don’t make ’em like they used to.”

Coming off of his hugely successful Disney movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Director Joe Johnston created an on-screen translation that paid homage to old Hollywood, not only in style, but in content too. In-jokes fly faster than a man in a Rocket Pack, and this probably explains why the core audience that’s connected with The Rocketeer is comprised of cinema and comic geeks.

Whereas Raiders of the Lost Ark had the heavyweight star-power of Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg to go along with its serials-of-yesterday retro-cool factor, The Rocketeer only had the later.

Well, at least on its surface.

Like Raiders, Rocketeer is well cast, well directed, beautifully paced and has an incredibly moving music score. Its heroes are lovable (Howard Hughes himself, anyone?) and its villains are bad to the bone (including a trowback-henchman named Lothar). The special effects (also from ILM) infused a brilliant combination of miniature models, stop-motion animation and a faked on-screen look from a “shaky cam” invented specifically for the shoot.

This is a movie that has its fans (as evidenced by last night’s screening), and will hopefully get a much needed remastering for Blu-ray in the near future.

Until that time, it’s a blast from the past doomed to the IF YOU LIKE RAIDERS TRY ROCKETEER Netflix model of moviegoing.