The Rocketeer

Directed by Joe Johnston, The Rocketeer follows hotshot stunt pilot Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell) as he becomes the title superhero after getting his hands on a high-tech jet pack. Filmmaker Johnston, armed with Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo’s screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced and unabashedly old-fashioned adventure that benefits from its raft of appealing performances, with Campbell’s charming, commanding work matched by an engaging cast that effectively enhances the proceedings on an all-too-regular basis. (And although periphery players like Jennifer Connelly and Alan Arkin provide able support, Timothy Dalton’s mustache-twirling turn as the picture’s villain remains an obvious highlight.) The somewhat overlong running time is, as a result, hardly as problematic as one might’ve feared, and it doesn’t hurt, certainly, that Johnston has packed the narrative with a whole host of entertainingly larger-than-life action sequences – which, when coupled with a genuinely enthralling climax, cements The Rocketeer‘s place as an agreeable throwback that works just as well now as it did in 1991.

*** out of ****

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