The Jukebox Musical whose light handed touch with a show filled to the brim with 80s hair metal, "Rock Of Ages" tells the story of attempts to close down a Whiskey A Go Go ("The Bourbon" har har) type rock club and the return of a rock star to play a benefit to keep the club still up and running.
Former rock nyc metal writer Todd Leibowitz loved it and I, who, over and above Guns N Roses, don't like hair metal as a genre all that much, thought it was a pathetic bore.
"Rock Of Ages" the movie, an expansion on a theme, would be much worse if their hit job was on a genre of music, or simply songs, that required talent to perform. From Journey to Poison, this is really naff material. And unless you consider the light voiced Tom Cruise doing a preposterously over the top "Pour Some Sugar On Me" anything but vaguely indifferent, you won't take umbrage at the music.
The acting is non existent, and Tom Cruise appears to believe he is Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now". Russell Brand was much more believable in "Get Me To The Greek" -a better movie on every level and not that great either.
However, perhaps you will take umbrage at the talented director Adam Shankage's diodgy rock and roll mythos and dancing with the stars choreography. What should have been a fun romp is, in fact, a bloated drag of a movie with a dollop of true spirit they can't ban our music thrown in top for good measure. Alec Baldwin plays the club owner, Russel Brand the manager, Diego Bonita and Julianne Hough the star crossed lovers, Mary J Blige the manager of a strip club where nobody strips and Malin Akerman as a Rolling Stone reporter who sleeps with the Cruise rock star.
This subplot is only one of two things that ring true, with the reporter trashing Cruise's Stacie Jaxx after fucking him for a Stone cover cover story. Jann approved this? Wow,
The other moment that rang true was Julianne Hough flicking through a copy of Creem on her boyfriends bed.
This would all be much, much worse if you could get a head of steam over a cover of "Sister Christian". As it is, the only thing to be done with a movie where "Dead Or Alive" is the best song and "We Built This Sister" a rock club's theme song, is sneer. PS: Rolling Stone gave this trash a three star review.
Grade: D+