Drew Boley: Diego Boneta
Stacee Jaxx: Tom Cruise
Dennis Dupree: Alec Baldwin
Lonny: Russell Brand
Patricia Whitmore: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Paul Gill: Paul Giamatti
Constance Sack: Malin Akerman
Mike Whitmore: Bryan Cranston
Justice Charlier: Mary J. Blige
New Line Cinema presents a
film directed by Adam Shankman. Written by Justin Theroux and Chris D’Arienzo
and Allan Loeb. Musical book by Chris D’Arienzo. Running time: 123 min. Rated
PG-13 (for sexual content, suggestive dancing, heavy drinking, and language).
After the final preview
trailer, the audience in our small town’s modestly attended opening night
screening of the new rock musical “Rock of Ages” hushed with anticipation. The
company logos flashed with a score that sounded reminiscent of the rock music
of the 1980s and the images started moving, showing us a girl on a bus wearing
headphones. She begins to sing the Night Ranger song “Sister Christian”. The audience shifts in their seats, not
sure what to think of this girl bursting into song with no introduction to
character or location. Then the bus driver adds a couple of lines to the lyrics
and the chuckles begin. Then the entire bus passenger population joins in and
the chuckles increase.
Modern movie audiences still
aren’t used to the conventions of the movie musical despite the fact that
Hollywood has resumed the practice of making musicals at the rate of about one
major musical per year for the past decade. The musical “Rock of Ages” never
apologizes for what it is. It’s goofy and cheesy and drenched in the hair metal-based
pop culture of the mid 80s, during which its events take place. I’m not
entirely sure the movie really knows what it is itself for the first half hour
of its running time. After about the thirty-minute mark, I had finally decided
that it is intended to be a full on comedy about 80s music and the attitudes
encapsulated within the iconic songs of the era. Sometimes it even works.
The story follows Sherrie
(Julianne Hough, “Footloose”), the girl on the bus who has left her small
Midwest town to pursue a career as a singer in L.A. in 1987. She meets another
aspiring singer, Drew (Diego Boneta, “Pretty Little Liars”), who works at the
Bourbon, a CBGB’s type of club responsible for launching the career of one of
L.A.’s biggest rock stars, Stacee Jaxx. Tom Cruise plays Jaxx as if he’s
finally embraced all the crazy that people suspect of him in real life.
Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock”)
plays the club’s owner, Dennis Dupree, who struggles with the lameness of
running a business and having to deal with things like taxes, while trying to
live the freedom inspired life offered by rock. Baldwin and Russell Brand
threaten to steal everything with their show-stopping duet of REO Speedwagon’s
“Can’t Stop This Feeling”, in which Dennis finally realizes his romantic
feelings for Brand’s character, Lonny.
Meanwhile, the villainous
threat is realized in a character created specifically for the movie. Catherine
Zeta-Jones (“Chicago”) is the mayor’s wife, who campaigns to have the Bourbon
shut down in a bid to clean up the Strip. Also, Paul Giamatti (“The Ides of
March”) represents the slimeball factor of the music industry as Jaxx’s agent,
who tries to turn Drew into a member of a boy band.
Much has been made of the
movie’s PG-13 rating. The story very much embraces the 80’s pop culture notion
of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll going hand in hand. They make a slight effort to
tone down the drugs portion of that equation, although Jaxx is a heavy drinker
and most of the action takes place in a bar. The rock ‘n roll is a given with
the music, but I’m not sure how they intended to make a movie so centered on
the L.A. sex industry without an ‘R’ rating. To be sure there’s no actual
nudity, so the movie falls within the arbitrary standards of the MPAA’s PG-13
rating, but the content is pervasively sexually suggestive. This stuff is not
for 13-year-olds.
The music will please any
fan of the 80s hair metal scene. The musical book is mostly inhabited by the
popular power ballads of the era originally made famous by such bands as
Journey, Foreigner, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and Poison. Vocally the cast handles
the songs very well, with Cruise doing a good deal of the heavy lifting on
songs like “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. The romantic
leads belt several popular songs by Journey and Foreigner to good effect. The
songs performed by Zeta-Jones and her morality backup dancers seem a bit
contradictory to their cause. Brand and Baldwin are certainly the weak points
vocally, but they make up for it with their comic timing.
The visual direction of this
musical collage of hair and leather by Adam Shankman is where the movie tends
to trip over itself. Shankman’s last musical was the excellent “Hairspray”,
which covered up a message of tolerance with a bubble gum pop sensibility that
delighted in overblown emotions and cornball sentimentality. While cornball
sentimentality is inherent in some of the over emotional ballads here,
Shankman’s schmaltzy photography doesn’t always mesh with the darker production
design dictated by the pop metal atmosphere of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. Also,
he lacks the social message to lend credibility to all this silliness.
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