Better Man

The film marketplace is crowded with celebrity biopics. So how can one stand out? By turning the subject into a CGI monkey, of course!

Given that Robbie Williams often considers himself “a performing monkey”, it makes sense that he’s depicted as a CGI chimpanzee in the film, directed by The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey.

As most biopics do, Better Man begins with Robbie’s childhood and progresses to his career beginnings in Take That and then onto his wildly successful solo career. However, unlike most films in the genre, it doesn’t try to cover his whole life and stops in the early 2000s.

To begin, let’s first get the monkey concept out of the way. The idea is ridiculous and it shouldn’t work, yet Gracey absolutely pulls it off.

Thanks to stunning visual effects and an impressive motion capture performance from Jonno Davies, the monkey version of Robbie is very convincing.

You get used to the concept...