Rock Of Ages Review

11th Jun 2012

Classic Rock has the great benefit of appealing to the mainstream audiences (as opposed to say Metal or industrial Rock). Right there it is given a leg up on the benefits it can reap from the audience. And like every other “themed” musical to hit our faces in the past decade there is an all-star ensemble, with a couple of you newbies thrown into the mix – all dancing, prancing and vocally challenging themselves for our amusement. What matters though is if it works. Have they chosen the correct songs? Are the right people singing them? Are there too many song? And do they actually fit into the narrative, if there is one so to speak.

Well you just about get a yes on most counts. The tale is a bit of an abysmal simple one. Two hot young youths are in town – both with dreams of becoming singers whom also happen to fall in love at the same time with each other and get a bit emotional confused along the way. Throw into the mix the venue they work at which is in danger of being shut down by the local religo-political group for their adherence to Rock n Roll. So they need to raise cash – and the way to do that is by getting Tom Cruise to sing there one night.

So it’s all pretty straight forward. Someone clipped out the best aspects of other musicals, even the raving religious nutters from The Best little Whorehouse In Texas and have inserted the rock tracks into it.

But for a musical often you tend to have very little time to have plot when all those songs keep getting in the way, so it is understandable that they have kept it fairly simple. And there are plenty of visual and character gags even within the songs themselves – but it is often with the characters where the film slips up from time to time.

Russell brand for example doesn’t seem to know what English accent he wants to talk in (Is he Londoner, Brummie? Manc?). Thankfully the guy is such a prat that you just let him be as you’re too busy laughing at Alec Baldwin’s tubby boss. The real bad news though is with the two young leads. Whilst leading man Diego Boneta (who looks like Mathew McConaughey’s nephew) is just about good enough to look the part and can actually sing. His voice isn’t quite as powerful enough when it comes to him taking centre stage (but then not many of the cast can hold much of a candle, yet alone a zippo, to the original vocals of any of the songs). But worse still is that the leading lady Julianne Hough is terribly miscast. The first impression you will get from her singing is that she may well be too suited to being a country bumpkin singing things all a bit more western like (And upon looking her up on the net we discovered that is precisely what she is trained in – slaps face). It’s hollywood miscasting of the worst offence thinking that any old singer can be dropped in and out of any musical (And Hough has been in several). but if Hollywood think that Thor is likely to go for Natalie Portman then why not this. And it’s a shame as she probably gets the lion’s share of the songs in the film and really makes the film sink into a bit of a rut towards its third act.

Yes a good half an hour could have been knocked out of this film by trimming some of the tunes – but if anyone is to blame for the lull then it is the amazing appearance of Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx who is absent for large parts of the film. You half expect the man to do a quick number and then bugger off, but Cruise commands the screen with his truly wonderfully cliched tortured Rock Star dealing with their own inner turmoil. The early to late mid-section of the film sees Cruise go from one song to the next. He races through the entire club to Wanted Dead or Alive, and even starts to get jiggy with Malin Ackerman’s reporter to I Want To Know What Love is. And this is before he actually gets to his actual on stage performance of Pour Some Sugar on Me. These moments are well choreographed, very well performed and have a great sense of humour about them. But the moment he is gone you really start to miss him and are waiting far too long for his return.

Right from start to finish you barely get much of a breather when it comes to the songs, thankfully the supporting cast do their best to entertain you and are a good distraction for the far too many love ballads being shoved down your throat. But really if you like the songs then you are going to enjoy the film overall. It also comes with added monkey (Yup Jaxx has a very active pet following him around) which is never a bad thing where Filmwerk is concerned.