“The Rocketeer” is a fun action/adventure set during World War II that you can enjoy with your older children. Bill Campbell stars as Cliff Secord, a pilot who is building an experimental plane with his good friend, P.V. Peabody. When Cliff is shot down accidentally by mobsters, he needs to come up with some money, fast, to keep the project going. The mobsters hide a super-secret jet pack in the airplane hangar to keep it tucked away from the Feds, and Cliff finds it.
He puts it on to discover that with it, he can fly anywhere he wants. He decides to use it to earn money to finance the continuing experimentation with the new plane, but he catches the eye of the Feds and also the mobsters who are rivaling the first group of mobsters—it’s a little complex, but to make a long story short, a whole bunch of people are now chasing Cliff, trying to get their hands on that jet pack.
Cliff’s girlfriend, Jenny (Jennifer Connelly) has a bit part in a big Hollywood production starring Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton). Neville overhears Cliff and Jenny talking about the jet pack, and decides to woo Jenny to get more information. Neville, as it turns out, is a Nazi spy, and the Nazis want the jet pack to use against the Allies. As Neville flirts with the unsuspecting Jenny, Cliff figures out what Neville is up to and runs to Jenny’s aid, to find that she’s done a pretty good job herself up to that point.
I really liked the suspense and the action in this film, and the romance was very sweet. I recommend it for older children as there is a bit of violence in the film, but it wouldn’t be over the top for ten or eleven year olds. There’s also some flirting between Neville and Jenny, but again, not over the top.
This film is rated PG.
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