Robbie Williams in Better Man

Better Man is a conventional musical biopic that is made insanely, amazingly unconventional—to the point of being deranged—by the fact that Robbie Williams, the musician in question, is portrayed for the entire length of the film as a chimpanzee. He is a very realistic looking chimpanzee, too! 

The musical numbers here are really the highlight. “Rock DJ” is insanely good—both my companion and I looked at each other and said oh this movie is great when that number ended. “She’s the One” is excellent too. In fact, the whole thing really works. 

The reason I didn't love this is that Better Man's plot is just so conventional. You've seen this story a hundred times. And this makes its overly long running time—140 minutes—very silly indeed. If the film's plot isn't going to surprise us, it doesn't need to keep going. For me, the chimpanzee gimmick really doesn't run out of steam. It keeps working for the entirety of the movie's length, but the story the movie has to tell is not nearly as cool as the style in which it is told, and for the last twenty minutes of this film, I was impatient for it to end.