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BETTER MAN MOVIE REVIEW
Let’s go through our musical biopic checklist, shall we? Talented kid from a broken home dreams of becoming a pop star? Check. Serious daddy issues? Check. Fame and overwork leads to exhaustion, addiction, and self-destructive behavior? Check, check, and check. Protagonist is depicted as a CGI singing, dancing monkey voiced by the musical celebrity himself? Also check. Wait, what?! Based on the life and career of UK pop star Robbie Williams, Better Man rarely deviates from the standard musical biopic template; however, that last creative decision breaks with the formula entirely. This admittedly novel approach allows Williams to play himself from the age of 15 to 50, but can this obvious gimmick compensate for a screenplay that feels like it came from a kit and was assembled by a committee of studio executives? In a word – “Yes”. Oneofus.net spared no expense in digitally replacing our reviewers with CGI animal doubles. Unfortunately, this is an audio-only podcast, so you’ll have to trust us when we tell you the VFX are surprisingly good – kind of like this movie. See what Frank (“OMG I LOVE ROBBIE WILLIAMS!!!”), Ben (“I like a few of his songs”), and Marco (“Robbie who?”) thought of this uncanny mix of the fresh and the familiar.
DIRECTED BY: Michael Gracey
STARRING: Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies, Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman, Damon Herriman, Raechelle Banno, Anthony Hayes, Kate Mulvany, Frazer Hadfield, Jake Simmance, Liam Head, Jesse Hyde, Chase Vollenweider, Adam Tucker, Chris Gun, Jack McMinn, Jamie Condon
YOUR REVIEWERS
Marco Noyola (Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Audio Editor)
By day, Marco is a mild-mannered office worker, but by night he is a mild-mannered movie watcher. He does other mild-mannered stuff too.
“You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody!”
Frank Calvillo (Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad)
Born and raised in South Texas, Frank currently lives in Austin and has been in love with movies ever since his father showed him some Three Stooges shorts when he was five years old. Today he loves all kinds of film, regardless of era, country, budget or genre. He believes every film has an audience and is at least one person’s favorite movie. After writing for Sight & Sound and Slackerwood, he now writes for Cinapse where his increasingly random taste in all flavors of cinema (from Rashomon to Mars Attacks!) continues to thrive. His ultimate goal is to write a script for his boyhood crush, Michelle Pfeiffer.
Ben Glasthal (Highly Suspect Review, Screener Squad, Breakfast Pub, Unstabletop Gamers, Video and Audio Editor)
Born in Boston, then ending up in Dallas, Texas in the early 2000s, Ben has always had a passion for film. He started in film school not long after where he launched MovieReelizations.com where he still writes reviews to this day. He’s since moved to Austin where he has been also hopping on podcasts and both editing and shooting videos for One of Us. A fan of films from almost all genres, and many that predate him more than makes sense, he is anything if not eclectic in what he’s watching at any point. For the rest of his free time, he can be found biking, drinking craft beer, being an amateur photographer, and playing video games by himself or on Twitch. He’s best found on Instagram or Twitter as @MovieReelBen.
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