Customer Reviews

The Rocketeer

5 star:		(89)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Based on Dave Stevens' graphic novel (which was inspired by "King of the Rocketmen" a movie serial from the 40's), this retro fantasy is a blast (pardon the pun). Unfortunately, the DVD transfer is not so hot. Director Joe Johnston ("October Sky", "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and "Jurassic Park III")does a nice job with this feature film recreating the look of Hollywood in 1938.

BLU-RAY REVIEW:

Disney has given us a very nice looking Blu-ray debut for "The Rocketeer. Although the image is occasionally a bit soft the overall detail, depth and colors are far superior to every previous edition of the movie. The film looks exceptionally good for a film that is 20 years old.

We get a nice 5.1 lossless mix--it won't blow you away the way that, say, "Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon" audio might, but it's immersive and sounds extremely good with crisp, clear dialogue.

Special Features: Someone missed the boat at the Mouse house here--we get the theatrial trailer and really nothing else of worth. That's just wrong since there's A LOT of material out there on the making of teh film.

4 stars for the transfer which looks extremely good and 1/s star for the "special Feature".

Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell) and "Peevy" (Alan Arkin) have put together a cutting edge stunt plane. During a test flight the plane is destroyed in an accident involving the FBI and the Mob. It seems the Mob has stolen a revolutionary rocket packet designed by Howard Hughes (the great Terry O'Quinn)which the U.S. wants to use for military purposes. Unfortunately, so do the Nazi's who hired Mob kingpin Eddie Valentine (Paul Sorvino) to steal it. Secord accidently comes into possession of the rocket pack and suddenly everyone from Hollywood actor/Nazi agent Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton) to the FBI want to catch him and retrieve it.

ORIGINAL DVD REVIEW:

This is a fun witty film of the graphic novel. The DVD transfer looks so-so. The image is frequently too dark and there's lots of digital artifacts (aliasing, etc.) that mar the picture. Presented in widescreen, it's not enhanced for 16x9 sets and doesn't appear to be an anamorphic transfer either. Why does all that matter? Because on a widescreen TV it would have enhanced and improved the picture quality making it look sharp, vivid and alive. The original theatrical trailer is the only extra. I don't know if Disney has any immediate plans to reissue this but if you do purchase it, be aware that it doesn't look all that great on DVD because of the transfer by Disney.

I'm hoping that Disney will be reissuing this terrific movie because it certainly deserved it. Unfortunately, the film with its loopy charm and srong performances didn't get the audience it deserved and died at the box office. Disney, get off your duff and reissue this as a two DVD Special Edition as it deserves!

The Rocketeer is one of the most enjoyable action-adventure movies ever made. Everything about this film is wonderful. Director Joe Johnson perfectly captures the look and feel of Hollywood (or what Hollywood should look and feel like) during the 1930s. Great casting with Bill Campbell right on target at Cliff Secord, Jennifer Connelly as his best girl, Jenny Blake, Alan Arkin as Cliff's mentor and mechanic/inventor friend, and Timothy Dalton as the evil Nazi spy-movie star Neville Sinclair. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark, it is a homage to the film serials of the period, but with a lot more spit and polish. The special effects are great, the set decoration, costumes, makeup, all evoke the time and place perfectly. A wonderful script adapted from the graphic novel of the same name sets this movie apart from others in this genre. The dialogue is funny, fast and at sometimes furious. Campbell plays the All-American boy with a real gee whiz, almost Jimmy Stewart kind of charm. The plot about a secret plan by the Nazis to build rocket packs for an army of "Rocketeers" to take over the world is added and abetted by Dalton as the Errol Flynn-like movie star. When a prototype rocket pack accidentally ends up in the hands of Campbell and Arkin, the action, and their troubles, really start. This film is filled with dozens of wonderful characterizations. Some of the best are Paul Sorvino as gangster Eddie Valentine, Terry O'Quinn as Howard Hughes, and Tiny Ron as Lothar. The musical score by James Horner is outstanding. It's heroic, quiet and inspiring. Why this film didn't turn out to be the big blockbuster it should have been is beyond me. I love Raiders of the Lost Ark, but this film matches it in almost every category. One of my favorite modern films, I never tire of watching it. Perfect entertainment and perfect for all ages. The Rocketeer is a real winner.

This movie is clearly a five star film. It's exciting, fun, adventurous and great for kids, but also for adults! The photography is great, sets and costumes are authentic, and the acting is first rate. HOWEVER, this has got to be the worst DVD transfer I have ever seen. It looks to me like they took a widescreen 72 mm print and projected it on a screen, then rephotographed it on 35 mm... no kidding. Nearly every letterbox film I have goes from one side of my flat panel monitor to the other. This one is well within all 4 sides of my monitor... and the color is milky and faded and there is a grainy character to the picture. The sound is clearly stereophonic and wonderful... so why Disney can put out an amateur transfer like this is beyond me. Having said that, the film is not expensive and I still recommend it.... but Disney needs to re-release a clear transfer of this wonderful film. I will be worried about the quality of future Disney and Miramax films on DVD if this is how they are going to be released.

"The Rocketeer" is a wonderfully nostalgic gem of a movie that giddily embodies the spirit of Old-Hollywood adventure. Unfortunately, its charms were completely lost on this jaded generation. It wasn't a big box office success and thus squashed the producer's hopes of turning "The Rocketeer" into an ongoing series, something that I will forever be upset by.

Set in 1934 Los Angeles, director Joe Johnston ("Jumanji", "Jurassic Park III", "Hidalgo") has created a truly flawless, old-fashioned adventure. Our hero is Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell), a flying ace who comes into possession of a stolen rocket pack designed by Howard Hughes (Terry O'Quinn). 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 is forced to use it to rescue a pilot in trouble during an airshow. He straps on the jetpack and a helmet designed by his friend Peevy (Alan Arkin) which not only protects him, but serves as a handy superhero-identity-concealer.

Cliff barely manages to rescue the pilot, while hundreds of awe-struck spectators 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 (Jennifer Connelly). When he tells her "I have a secret. I'm the Rocketeer!" she confusedly responds "The Rock-a-who?"

The main villain who wants to get his hands on the rocket is handsome, charismatic film star Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton), an obvious parody of Errol Flynn. This parody of Flynn and the film's ability to tie together many aspects of 1930's-40's pop-culture is its greatest strength. Drawing heavily on Hollywood icons, then-contemporary world events, and on aviation history, you'll find yourself completely immersed in this 1930's world and wishing you could've lived then.

For those of you who don't know about this movie, read the other posts here. What I'm going to talk about is the poor video quality of this release.

To start, the framing has been noticably cropped from its original 2.35:1 Panavision scope aspect ratio. If you are familiar with the original widescreen/letterbox laserdisc that Disney released, you'll find that this DVD sports the exact same composite video transfer with all of its inherent problems intact. No new high definition master was created for this release.

The only thing of merrit is that the ORIGINAL 5.1 surround track was used to encode it to Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Yup, the packaging is in error. You're in for a treat as the split surround channels are pretty darn active considering it was mixed in the early days of 5.1 digital surround equipped cinemas.

Hopefully, Disney will re-do this DVD in the near future. They created a fresh transfer for The Santa Clause SE, so why not the superior The Rocketeer??

This is NOT a modern movie, it is a movie that is what the old adventure serials would have liked to have been. The cast is uniformly excellent, but you have to think back to "The Red Skull" serial to understand what they are doing. There is no winking at the camera as in the Indiana Jones movies (which I also like very much) -- this is straight, square-jawed Boy Scout hero fights sneaky villians, with the help of beautiful, plucky girlfriend and mechanical genius sidekick/father-figure. It is an excellent family movie.

The movie has some nice movie-buff jokes, which I enjoyed (the character from "The Pearl of Death" was a lot of fun), and loving attention is paid by the set-designers to details of the thirties in Southern California (as far as I can tell from old photos and talking to natives of the area) and to the aviation industry of the time (according to my father, who was and is a buff starting during that period). In any event the movie looks great and feels "authentic".

I don't understand why this movie was such a flop -- I can see that it wasn't going to make the imact of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but it should have done well enough to rate a sequel. However, the movie trailer on the DVD convinced me that the marketing people at Disney failed to advertise the movie correctly, and I certainly remember being surprised (although pleasantly) when I saw it in a theater.

This is the sort of film for which the superlatives "golly gee!" and "gosh, wow!" apply quite nicely. If you've ever wondered what those 1930s serials about heroes and damsels in distress and cackling bad guys were like that your grandfolks enjoyed so many years ago, this film offers a great facimile of those addictive serials! "The Rocketeer" has that quality of whiz-bang action and whooshing excitement that makes serials so much fun.

In fact, this film is based upon a comic book novel that was a tribute to those serials. As a result, the plot line has a familiar ring to it - our handsome hero (Campbell) and his sweet and lovely main squeeze (the ever-easy-on-the-eyes Jennifer Connelly) run into trouble after the hero discovers a stolen prototype jet-pack circa 1938. Our hero dons the jet-pack and voila, he becomes The Rocketeer! Unfortunately, the mob is after him and the feds are after him. Everyone wants that jet-pack! Along the way, there are ugly mean henchmen, rat-a-tat-tat machine gun fights, a great rocketman rescue in the air, swooning heroines, and fun swash-buckling sword-fights (yes!). Wait, there's more! There are great exploding blimp-airships and bang-up car chases and funky Howard Hugh prototype airplanes. And where would we be in a 1930ish film without a few rascally nazis?

So, what more could you ask for? Cheer for the hero and hiss at the villains! This film has that same "golly gee" sense of yesteryear fun that the original "Raiders of the Lost Ark" had. Sure, it's all light, fluffy stuff, but it's good clean fun for the entire family! A few words about the DVD, which I bought. This is one of Disney's early DVDs. Unfortunately, Disney's early DVDs usually had non-anamorphic transfers, expensive prices, nonexistent extras, and just so-so picture quality. This DVD has those problems; the picture quality at times shows edge enhancement or shimmering. And the dark scenes have a fuzzy, muddy appearance to them. Sound quality is average but booms at the appropriate times in the movie. I just wish Disney had spent more time on a better video transfer. But still, it's a fun film! I rate this film four stars, but just keep in mind that the DVD version is not up to par with Disney's later DVDs.

There exists in Hollywood an underground band of moviemakers that wait for the opportunity to make flying pictures. The Rocketeer is one of these pictures.

It is a great family movie sort of on the same level as the Flash Gordon serials of the same era this movie depicts, plus many inside references to fascism in Hollywood, Howard Hughes, and so forth. Plus, the art direction is outstanding throughout, giving us the Dog restaurant, and hundreds of '30's reference points such as a WC Fields cameo and Artie Shaw's Orchestra. Reasonably good acting and a total knockout for a heroine.

But the real reason to watch this picture is for the completely accurate recreation of '30's aviation that swirls through the film. Gee Bees, Travel Airs, dirigibles, and autogyros are on regular view. No only that, the air of garage-level aviation of that time is correctly created. This makes the picture enjoyable on a number of levels. Too bad they never made the sequels.

This is the perfect film to watch with your 12 year old son on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I was THRILLED to learn that Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment would be releasing "The Rocketeer" on Blu-Ray on December 13, 2011. It is one of my all-time favorite films, and one that I knew I would buy on Day One of its release. However, when word came out that the Blu-Ray disc would contain NO special features, my thrill at buying this film lessened slightly.

"The Rocketeer" is an endearing classic, and one that deserves a full Special Edition treatment, with bonus features such as commentary, retrospective documentary, photo galleries, trailers, and deleted scenes. I was completely dismayed and disheartened to learn that NONE of those features will be on the upcoming Blu-Ray. I most likely will no longer purchase "The Rocketeer" on the day of its release, as the quality of the product is now less than I expected. Rather, I will wait for the disc to go on sale below $15 (whenever that may be) instead of immediately pay the suggested retail price for what is essentially a movie-only Blu-Ray disc.

It's a decision I'd rather not make, and I'm hoping that between now and December, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will re-evaluate the release plans for "The Rocketeer" and decide to include bonus features. Even if this means delaying the release to include bonus features such as a director's commentary and a new making-of documentary (along with any archival material I will list below), it will definitely be worth the wait, and would certainly make me consider buying this film on its release day once again.

Just as an example, here are some excellent archival material that already exists within the company's archives that can be included:

-20th Anniversary Screening Q&A Session - when D23 screened "The Rocketeer" at El Capitan this past June (the 21st), they held a Q&A session after the film, in which director Kevin Smith fielded questions to director Joe Johnston, star Bill Campbell, writers Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, artist William Stout and make-up guru Rick Baker. If this event was recorded, it would make for an excellent inclusion on the Blu-Ray disc.

-The theatrical trailer - this was already included in the Laserdisc and DVD. A remastered version (in HD) would make for an excellent inclusion, as it not only provides historical context for the marketing of the film, but is a no-brainer for inclusion on any home media release.

-"The Rocketeer: Excitement in the Air" - this is a television special that aired on June 19, 1991 before the film's theatrical release. It was never included on Laserdisc or DVD, sadly. Like the trailer, it makes for a great contemporary piece that is related to the film's original release. I remember watching this when I was six years old and getting really excited for the film. It would be wonderful to see it again.

-Electronic Press Kit Interviews - if the above documentary cannot be used, then surely the interviews done for the special could be included, either on their own or re-edited into a brand-new making-of feature.

-"Meet Me Down at the El Capitan" - when the film premiered on June 21, 1991, there was a lot of celebration at the El Capitan, including a song-and-dance number, "Meet Me Down at the El Capitan." I've never seen it before, but I'm fairly certain it will exist somewhere in the vast archives.

-Photo & Poster Galleries - this is rather self-explanatory, as hundreds of photos and posters must exist in the archives. There was a HUGE marketing bonanza for the film when it came out. In addition, it is always exciting to see how the film was marketed in its time, both domestically and internationally.

-"The Rocketeer" Topps Trading Cards - there were 121 total cards in this collection, as well as 11 stickers. I used to have several from when I was a child, but sadly lost them through the years. Seeing them again in high-definition scans on a Blu-Ray disc would be wonderful.

If any of these suggestions are ultimately included when "The Rocketeer" is released to Blu-Ray, I will be a very satisfied customer who will buy the disc on its release date, and definitely would recommend purchase of the Blu-Ray to my friends. Until then, I'll have to pass and wait for a better price, as even Amazon.com's $18.99 is too much for just the film by itself. Hopefully, come December 13 I can update this review to share my excitement and customer satisfaction for a Blu-Ray disc that's worth buying.

EDITED TO ADD (December 2): I recently read an online review for the product, and it notes that the ONLY bonus feature is the theatrical trailer. Needless to say, I sent the following to Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment...

Three months ago, I wrote to Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment to voice my disappointment and dismay at their upcoming release of "The Rocketeer" on Blu-Ray. I asked the studio to re-consider their decision of excluding any bonus features on the title, and offered suggestions for what type of material they could include. A few weeks later, I received an e-mail from the Legal Department, thanking me for my e-mail, but further stressing that they do not accept unsolicited ideas. That was understandable, and I had hoped that WDSHE at least considered the option of adding any bonus features at all (outside the realm of features I suggested).

Recently, I read an online review for "The Rocketeer" on Blu-Ray, and the review makes sure to note that the only bonus feature included is the theatrical trailer. Needless to say, I was disappointed in reading this. While I'm happy that the trailer was included (especially since WDSHE never includes the trailer of a newly-released movie, but is fine adding 10 trailers of upcoming movies), I'm still upset that no other bonus features were commissioned for production or even licenced out of the studio archives.

I am telling all my friends to not purchase this title, and I myself will not be purchasing it either. It is very upsetting that the studio - who has put out excellent Blu-Rays such as "Beauty and the Beast", "Pirates of the Caribbean", and "TRON" - has given such inferior treatment to a home media product that has the capacity and ability to feature more than just the movie. While I'm sure the technical presentation of the film is excellent (the review I read made sure to bring notice to that), I cannot accept that there are virtually no bonus features on this title. I sincerely hope you revisit this title again in the future, with the intent of adding special features that make it worth of the "20th Anniversary Edition" banner that the current inferior product now carries.

There's a great deal more attention to period detail in "The Rocketeer" -- the clothing, hair styles on men, even the language used, all are more reminiscent of 1930's serials than anything Spielberg did. Not an indictment of Spielberg's work, just a partial explanation for why I enjoyed "The Rocketeer" so much. It's a love letter to Hollywood and to early aviation, and if you actually know a little about these two subjects the movie makes a lot more sense.

One reviewer stated he found the concept of Nazi spies and soldiers in Hollywood hard to believe -- yet the German Abwehr did drop several spies by parachute into the West country of England. All were ill-prepared and captured almost immediately, but clearly the idea was out there. As for soldiers, note that the Hindenberg carried Nazi soldiers regularly, and in 1938 we weren't at war.

The same reviewer also found the giant assassin unbelievable, but this movie _is_ a fantasy, after all, and the character is clearly based not only on the appearance of the real 1930's and 40's actor Rondo Hatton, but on the kind of character he frequently portrayed.

The movie also gets props for using Howard Hughes as a central character, and not only a Zeppelin, but an autogyro as well, in the climactic scenes!