Latest Updates - Alan Arkin

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Saw this in the cinema at time of release, and really liked it...

...Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world didn't very much, and so, it seems mostly forgotten.

It is probably the best "superhero" movie of it's time - way ahead in terms of production values and budget, and I don't think you would see it's like for almost another twenty years when the MCU started up it's epic journey. In fact, watching this again makes me realise that this is undoubtedly the movie that got Johnston the job of directing the Captain America: The first avenger movie - as it plays the old "retro" superhero movie to a tee.

As with CapAm, it has a powerful whiff of an Indiana Jones movie in the retro style - perfectly capturing that time period in look and feel, with a slight nod to Metropolis, with all that post Art-deco styling of the helmet and such.

...But this is not surprising either, as Johnston also worked on those Indiana Jones movies as art director, as well as later designing the Iron Giant in the animated feature.

It has a prototype rocket pack designed by Howard Hughes, which is being hunted by Nazis, gangsters, a Zeppelin, and Timothy Dalton as a quintessential British baddy, all fighting against the accidental Rocketeer hero, a local pilot who by chance, happens across said rocket pack, and decides to use it.

Great rip roaring adventure fun of the old matinee variety, which they just don't make anymore... well, except for the Indiana Jones movies... And that first Captain America movie... and it still looks great, and works well, both in the production, and the special effects, which still work for me.

(Incidentally, the DVD I got of this was a German release, which is merely called: "Rocketeer" (dropping the: "the") - not sure of my German , so stand to be corrected, but is this because the German rendering would be: Die Rocketeer (mildly amusing in English, but not exactly what the filmmakers want it to be known as).