Get the latest gossip
‘Better Man’ Review: Robbie Williams Biopic Would Be a Snooze, but for the Wild Choice to Depict Him as a Chimp
In 'Better Man,' Michael Gracey tackles the life of Britain's best-selling local artist with a twist: Robbie Williams appears as a CG ape throughout.
But that’s exactly how “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey interprets the remark in “ Better Man,” an off-the-wall musical biopic that surely would have seemed banal — as opposed to downright bananas — had it featured a flesh-and-blood actor in the Robbie Williams role. With “Better Man,” the musical maestro adds ridiculously complicated technical challenges to his résumé — like the jaw-dropping “Rock DJ” number staged in London’s busy Regent Street, shot over four days and stitched together to look like a single unbroken take, or the “Come Undone” sequence where he speeds away from the boy-band breakup, nearly smashes his car into an oncoming bus and plunges into a sea of paparazzi. Gracey’s visual effects team (led by Wētā whizzes Luke Millar and Andy Taylor) studied hours of archival footage in order to get the singer’s facial expressions just right, so every squint, wink and scowl corresponds to the real Robbie.
Or read this on Variety