Thirty years ago, The Rocketeer opened in third place at the US box office, well behind Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the juggernaut that had premiered the week before, and a little behind the Billy Crystal comedy City Slickers, which was in its third week. It finished just ahead of Dying Young, but only because it was allotted more screens. The viewing public was genuinely torn between a crackerjack retro adventure about a jetpack-wearing superhero or a drippy, modern-day Love Story in which Julia Roberts falls in love with a terminally ill cancer patient. A humbler fate for this franchise non-starter could not have been imagined.
And yet, here is
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