At The Movies: Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, Count Of Monte Cristo are electrifying tales

Better Man (M18)

134 minutes, opens on Jan 9
★★★★☆

The story: Britpop superstar Robbie Williams is a walking, talking, singing chimpanzee in an autobiography of his childhood through his three decades in the music industry, breaking away from the 1990s boy band Take That for solo success.

Williams has said he often felt like a performing monkey. Better Man by Australian director Michael Gracey presents him as he sees himself.

Bananas, maybe, but brilliant.

The simian creation – by Weta FX digital effects company of the rebooted Planet Of The Apes franchise (2011 to 2024) – is performed to perfection via motion capture by English actor Jonno Davies, with Williams narrating his origin story. Its irreverent candour is unmistakably Williams, even as it expresses, beyond Williams ever could, his feral self-loathing stemming from his father’s abandonment and the insecurities of fame.

A prototypical rise-fall-redemption celebrity biopic becomes in this fantasy realm an intimate confessional, dark and profoundly emotional. A tearful Chimp Williams wanders his Stoke-on-Trent neighbourhood, warbling his 2002 song Feel the day dad (Steve Pemberton) walks out on the family. Gracey, an animator whose only previous directorial feature is The Greatest Showman (2017), is inspired in re-contextualising Williams’ music.

The euphoria of Take That’s early ascent explodes into a flash mob dance of hundreds to Williams’ 2000 hit Rock DJ on London’s Regent Street, while Angels, his best-selling single from 1997, plays over the funeral of his beloved nan (Alison Steadman).

She’s The One (1999) is a sweet duet with then-fiancee Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno).

At no time do any of these humans – including his songwriter rival and Take That bandmate Gary Barlow (Jake Simmance) and his manager Nigel Martin-Smith (Damon Herriman) – notice he is proto-human, for his struggles are a surreal experience all his own.

Hot take: Williams and Gracey, two greatest showmen, fashion an electrifying spectacular.

The Count Of Monte Cristo (PG13)

178 minutes, opens on Jan 9
★★★☆☆

The story: In 1800s France, seaman Edmond Dantes (Pierre Niney) is framed for treason, arrested at his wedding and condemned to life on the island prison of Chateau d’If off Marseilles. He tunnels his way out 14 years later, escaping to exact vengeance in the guise of a mysterious Count of Monte Cristo.

Alexandre Dumas is having a moment.

The Three Musketeers was a French blockbuster released in two parts in 2023, and its screenwriting duo of Alexandre de La Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte have turned to directing an adaptation of the 19th-century French author’s other literary masterwork, The Count Of Monte Cristo (1844).

This €42.9 million (S$60.6 million) old-fashioned crowd-pleaser was French cinema’s most expensive production of 2024.

Dashing headlining star Niney, while no international name like musketeer Vincent Cassel or Romain Duris, is an athletic fit for the brisk historical adventure compressed from the 1,500-page novel.

The three-hour epic whips by with romance and intrigue in opulent settings across France, Italy and the Mediterranean.

A corrupt magistrate (Laurent Lafitte), his former ship captain Danglars (Patrick Mille) and his aristocrat friend Fernand de Morcerf (Bastien Bouillon) are the three men who betrayed Dantes, the last especially hateful for having then married Dantes’ true love Mercedes (Anais Demoustier). They have it coming, as Dantes exploits his newly acquired wealth and influence in high society for long-delayed retribution.

There is thrilling satisfaction in watching his elaborate schemes unfold with precision. In time, though, they will consume his humanity and the happiness of all around him.

That is his greatest tragedy. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but the aftertaste is toxic.

Hot take: A classic tale of justice and forgiveness is revived with swashbuckling vigour.