Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

So, by traditional qualifications, The Rocketeer isn’t exactly a great movie.  It could even be a stretch to call it a good one.  But what it lacks in greatness it makes up for in awesome.

I loved The Rocketeer as a kid.  I remember reading the novelization, and I believe I heard the audio version before I even saw the film.  Seeing it more recently, I loved it for what it was just as much as I loved it as a kid.  Special mention goes to Alan Arkin for being just as hilarious in The Rocketeer as he is in everything else.

5. Howard Hughes

Without going into tremendous depth about his personal life, suffice it to say that Howard Hughes is one of the most interesting, mysterious characters in American history.  The film The Hoax definitely does a great job of dealing with the more mysterious side of Hughes, and, of course, there’s Scorsese’s The Aviator.  However, in The Rocketeer, Howard Hughes is portrayed as a far more fanciful guy.  Whenever I think of Howard Hughes, I will always think of Terry O’Quinn’s portrayal of him in The Rocketeer; he’s just damn cool.

4. Pulp-a-licious

Cliff Secord is the ultimate tribute to the pulp heroes of the early 1900s.  And The Rocketeer has it all.  Bad guys with Tommy Guns, a damsel in distress, awesome sets and costuming that give off that art-deco vibe, mystery, intrigue, action, adventure!  These things are awesome elements of genre fiction separately, but when you put a damsel in distress in an awesome 1930s art-deco set with tommy gun-toting Nazis shooting shit up, well, how much better can it get?  Oh wait, you can throw a jetpack in there and make it 100% more awesome.

3. The Poster

Frankly, if this doesn’t make you want to see this movie, there’s something fucking wrong with you.

2. Neville Sinclair

Timothy Dalton is such a total badass in The Rocketeer it’s not even funny.  He was under-appreciated as Bond, and I think The Living Daylights is one of the best Bond movies ever; he’s got the British charm and wit down pat, but he also pulls off the serious scenes well.  In The Rocketeer, he’s doing his best Errol Flynn, but he’s secretly a NAZI!  Whoa there, you just blew my mind.  The charm-your-pants-off actor is really a Nazi spy, trying to get his hands on a jetpack so the Nazis can take over the world?  It’s like mixing Bond and Simon Skinner together.  Timothy Dalton should obviously be in more movies.

1. Jennifer Connelly.

More specifically, 1991, 21 year-old Jennifer Connelly.  All those indecent thoughts you used to have watching Labyrinth?  Well, now they’re totally okay.