Rock of Ages

[hudweiser]

From the director of Hairspray comes another stage-to-screen adap., this one about the 'golden age' of heavy metal - 1987.

It's like a hair-metal episode of Glee, unfortunately capped off with an over-used Don't Stop Believin', which has surely gone from obscure non-hit to anthem-for-everything in the last few years.

That said, the musical numbers are pretty awesome. Tom Cruise has a surprisingly effective and fitting voice for his role as a sort of Axl Rose rock god who's too lazy to contribute to anything. The lead girl (who I'd never heard of) pissed on everyone from a great height with her pipes, probably even making the likes of Lea Michele look like an amateur. Mary J. Blige's role is entirely superfluous, as is a lot of what happens in the script.

Apparently it's tanking in the US and it's not difficult to see why, it's very threadbare, but if you like the nostalgic age of American commercial rock (Journey, Starship, Bon Jovi, Pat Benetar, REO Speedwagon etc...) then it's worth a squizz.

[steste]

I like your review and I completely agree regarding Glee, it did feel like that. I've become very bored with Don't Stop Believin', I'm not too embarrassed to admit thatI first noticed it in the rollerskating scene in Monster.

[popprincess]

You thought Julianne Hough was way better than Lea Michele, hmmm, an interesting opinion of which I can't agree, I did think she was good though, I saw this film today and really enjoyed it, very funny in places and the music is great!

[Mike]

Aside from a couple of the musical numbers, this was just out-and-out dreadful. I never expected to be so bored watching a film that's designed to be pure switch-off-your-brain entertainment, but I got that one wrong.

The love story was tedious, the two leads were bland, most of the other characters served no purpose at all (how many more times will Russell Brand get paid for playing himself?) the dialogue was clunky and the film was at least 20 minutes too long.

[jk-ennedy]

Yeah I see this a few weeks back and it was just terrible. I mean, it looked really slick and they had a really impressive cast..but the two leads were just so dull and the script/energy of the film was DEAD. Such a shame as this could've been great but no..I was so bored throughout. Deserves to flop!