Better Man Reviews
I didn’t hate Better Man from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z, but ultimately, making a monkey out of Robbie Williams is an idea too difficult for Gracey to pull off.
Full Review | Feb 12, 2025
It should not work, and yet the commitment by director Michael Gracey is such that it's hard to look away.
Full Review | Feb 11, 2025
It's raw, so simple, but by having that chimpanzee in there it's somehow extremely stark.
Full Review | Feb 11, 2025
The otherwise familiar music biopic gets a lively and even poignant cinematic experience.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 11, 2025
If you’re worried Robbie Williams as a chimp will be distracting, it soon seems not so much off-the-wall as necessary. His story is brutal but it’s also common; how else to get people’s attention?
Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 10, 2025
Its generic rise-to-fall-to-redemption narrative is unbearably dull. However, the musical numbers are pretty electric and the editing is often inspired and clever.
Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 10, 2025
Gracey has transformed Williams' life, music, and demons into a thunderous cinematic spectacle.
Full Review | Feb 8, 2025
“Better Man” bursts with music and helps audiences understand Williams in a way that a straight biography couldn’t.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 6, 2025
It either clicks with you or it doesn't. But if it does it is great.
Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 6, 2025
It’s so much better than a film with a CGI monkey dancing on Regent Street has any right to be, but Better Man gets all of its emotional beats right without forgetting that same flair that made Gracey’s The Greatest Showman so likeable.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 5, 2025
Turning the traditional biopic on its head, “Better Man” is weird, bold, and an unexpectedly fun ride. Whether you know Robbie Williams’ music or not, this film is worth a watch just for the sheer creativity and spectacle.
Full Review | Feb 4, 2025
An unforgettable cinematic experience for one of the greatest musicals ever put to screen.
Full Review | Jan 31, 2025
This is an honest, entertaining and endlessly endearing spectacle.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 30, 2025
A completely moving and audacious musical biopic directed by Michael Gracey and you can truly feel Robbie Williams' heart and soul in this film.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 28, 2025
The monkey gimmick runs cold halfway through, making one long for a music biopic that swam on ordinary waters with the same human cast.
Full Review | Jan 25, 2025
An ugly and cynical vanity film produced and starring the subject himself. What's worse is that Better Man pretends to not be what it is, but it puts on a smarmy self-pitying show in an attempt to dispel any criticism of shallowness in the process.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 24, 2025
Regardless of how much Better Man actually works, it’s one of the only recent movies made at its budget level with a genuinely interesting relationship between its form and content.
Full Review | Jan 23, 2025
These deliriously energetic sequences propel the story, but its heart remains the turmoil of Robbie's life, and that stirs the soul in this fresh, innovative way to present a musical biopic.
Full Review | Jan 23, 2025
A Robbie Williams biopic that has the same energy as Kenny Powers pumping himself up by listening to his own autobiography. It's a blast.
Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 21, 2025
Co-writer/director Michael Gracey delivers an energetic, sometimes frenetic but never dull, masterclass in pop entertainment [with Better Man].
Full Review | Jan 21, 2025