Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Follow Robbie Williams' journey from childhood, to being the youngest member of chart-topping boyband Take That, through to his unparalleled achievements as a record-breaking solo artist – all the while confronting the challenges that stratospheric fame and success can bring.
Better Man earns exceptional marks for novelty and cinematography: the audacious choice to portray Robbie Williams as a CGI chimpanzee is genuinely singular in the biopic genre, and director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) executes the visual spectacle with real ambition and flair. The musical sequences are inventive and the production design is striking. However, the plot follows a fairly familiar rise-fall-redemption arc common to music biopics, and while the CGI performance carries emotional weight, the acting category is constrained by the unusual format. The ending, while emotionally resonant, doesn't fully transcend the genre's predictable reconciliation beats.