The craziest factor about this film isn’t that Robbie Williams is performed by a CGI chimp – however that it really works so nicely.
PLOT: The lifetime of worldwide pop star Robbie Williams, from his early days as a member of Take That to his breakthrough as a solo artist and his struggles with habit.
REVIEW: There’s a method that Higher Man is totally completely different from any music-based biopic you’ve ever seen. The director, Michael Gracey, depicts Robbie Williams as a CGI chimpanzee, with cutting-edge VFX from WETA, with actor Jonno Davies taking part in him in a mo-cap efficiency (though they use Williams’s distinctive eyes). The singer himself gives the narration. It’s dangerous and a giant swing, however right here’s the factor. The craziest factor about Higher Man isn’t the truth that Robbie Williams is introduced as a CGI chimpanzee however relatively that this dangerous conceit works fairly nicely.
Right here’s the factor – when an iconic particular person is impersonated in a biopic, we get caught up over numerous surface-level issues, with the most important being whether or not or not the actor appears to be like just like the particular person they’re taking part in. By having Williams represented as a monkey, you recover from that side a lot faster than you’d in any other case. Unusually, it helps you make investments extra within the character.
It’s an impressed selection for Gracey, who has a complete background in VFX and directed one of many extra fashionable latest musicals, The Best Showman. It additionally could assist the film appeal to a bigger North American viewers than it might in any other case. Regardless of being a European family title, Robbie Williams remains to be largely unknown in america.
This all provides as much as a extremely distinctive musical biopic that tells a narrative many readers of this website might not be aware of. The film charts Williams’s rise to fame, with him initially the dangerous boy in a band referred to as Take That, which was gigantic within the nineties all all through Europe. He was a family title, however because the film exhibits, he was kicked out attributable to his rising substance abuse points and tensions with the remainder of the group. He re-emerged as a solo artist, together with his fame finally dwarfing that of the group he left, however his demons didn’t let up on him as he continued to wrestle mightily with habit.
The movie depicts Williams’s life in a reasonably unsparring manner, with him usually coming off as a brat burning bridges relentlessly. But, the movie additionally has empathy for the truth that his best enemy was himself, visualizing his demons as different variations of himself mock him from the viewers.
Gracey depicts this all in a daring, energetic manner. The film climaxes with a serious motion sequence the place Williams actually battles completely different variations of himself in a second I didn’t see coming. By way of all of it, Gracey usually dazzles the viewers with set items, corresponding to a tremendous musical quantity the place Williams and the remainder of Take Take dance down Regent Avenue performing “Rock DJ.”
Gracey throws in all the pieces however the kitchen sink to entertain his viewers. Whereas Williams might not be so well-known in North America, the film does really feel prefer it has the potential to be a strong hit, even when the hard-R score could hold it from the viewers that made The Best Showman such a success. Then once more, given Williams’s struggles, might you do a watered-down PG-13 model? Who’d wish to see that?
Whereas the visible spectacle side of the film will in all probability be what sells this as a possible blockbuster, it additionally has a number of coronary heart, with a number of it revolving round his fractured relationship together with his father, performed right here by Steve Pemberton, who’s a annoyed, wannabe performer who imparts his love of showbiz on Robbie.
Whereas I went into Higher Man with a raised eyebrow, cautious of the chimpanzee side, to my delight, it labored splendidly. So far as big-screen biopics go, it is a fairly deliriously entertaining one, and I had a blast watching it. It’s undoubtedly one to maintain a watch out for.
