Michael Gracey's “Better Man” — a biopic musical about musician Robbie Williams — has its first trailer. The film arrives in select theaters on December 25 before expanding nationwide on January 17, 2025.
“Better Man” strives to be different from all the other musical biopics by having Robbie portrayed as a CGI monkey. Everyone else is human. The film is just overlong, clocking in at 134 minutes, and still manages to have conventional beats to its narrative (the highs, the lows). For the most part, it’s a fun movie to watch, but the gimmick does start to take its toll midway through the story.
Gracey directs with all of the flashy showboating he showed in “The Greatest Showman.” He hired Weta FX who used motion-capture suit to bring Williams as a monkey to life. That’s the film’s strongpoint, its visual ingenuity, and some of the Fosse-driven musical numbers are quite inspired. Jonno Davies, who plays Williams, does an admirable job.
However, as far as the fall titles with alternative takes on the standard musical biopic go, I far preferred “Piece by Piece,” which is a Pharrell Williams Lego docu-fiction hybrid.