Long before the Marvel and DC universes took over our cinema screens on a regular basis there was a time when getting big budget adaptation of a comic book into development was something of a nightmare - The Rocketeer was one of the first films to pull this feat off. The Rocketeer's attempt to recapture the excitement of Saturday matinee serials is largely successful - even more successful is its protagonist, Cliff Secord (played well by Billy Campbell, although the film hardly sparked a great career as a leading man), who manages to get caught up in a plot involving the FBI and Nazis and emerge unscathed without once having to fire a shot. As entertaining as The Rocketeer is - and there are far worse comic book movie adaptations out there - it failed to light up the box office so the planned sequel was scrapped. Perhaps unsurprisingly a remake is on the cards - comic book movies are the "in thing" once again.
