Review of Rock of Ages (2012) by Philip C — 06 May 2016

Attractive women (Julianne Hough and Malin Akerman for example), rock and roll and Tom Cruise. Put them all together and youâ(TM)ll get a good fun time right? By all accounts I should really like this movie. At least youâ(TM)d think so.

Rock of Ages tries hard and means well, but when all is said and remains nothing more than a group of good 80â(TM)s songs spliced together and a great cast of actors that are all mostly put to waste. Half of the big appeal itself Iâ(TM)m sure will be the music. Now I was neither born nor grew up in the 80s, but I can still appreciate the music from that decade. In Rock of Ages they play: Journey, Poison, Def Leopard, Twisted Sister etc⦠So yes thatâ(TM)s a very impressive ensemble of different bands. The film at times also shows a great affinity for records. Nothing beats original vinyl.

The other great thing about the film is the cast: Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russel Brand, Paul Giamatti, Malin Akerman, Julianne Hough, Bryan Cranston and Catherine Zeta-Jones. All of the actors come to play and do so accordingly, but itâ(TM)s Cruise who rocks it. His role as rock god Stacee Jaxx is really quite good. He definitely has the pipes for it. The scene where belts out âWanted Dead or Aliveâ? was awesome. So in those two respects, the film works. Watching all of these actors perform all of these great songs makes it worthwhile.

Or at least it would, if the story were any good. No matter how good the cast may look and no matter how good they may sound, none of that can cover up an extremely threadbare plot and very problematic structure issues.

When boiled down to its very essence, Rock of Ages is nothing more than a bunch of splashy and colorful images hacked together that all look good in IMAX. Itâ(TM)s the cinematic equivalent of a guy standing at a jukebox wanting to relive his glory days for 123 minutes. The immense talent that director Adam Shankman showed with Hairspray back in 2007 is almost nowhere to be seen here. The film just has no flow to its narrative. Itâ(TM)s just basically poorly written and overly clichà (C)d dialogue back and forth with good music thrown in between.

And speaking of the cast, what a waste of them it was. Sure they all played their parts well, but the script gives them almost nothing to work with. Many of the little moments and character motivations in between donâ(TM)t work, make sense and feel totally out of the blue. The few moments that were actually any good were all totally underdeveloped. The stuff between Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand in particular. So much potential wasted.

And speaking of Russel Brand, what was with the scene where he and his mob only partially sing âWe Built This Cityâ?? You have a great comedic actor and great song, so why not play the entire thing? Seriously why not? How hard is it to mess up something so simple? Like really?

Instead of focusing on what it should, the film bases itself on a poorly developed and very half-baked romance between Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta. Nothing against them, but itâ(TM)s not enough to have two good looking people just look at each other for five minutes and believe that theyâ(TM)re suddenly in love. So they sing like two songs, have the requisite âfalling in love montageâ? and thatâ(TM)s it? The whole thing lands on these two people and because of that, it wobbles more times than it ever stabilizes. Does nobody else buy this romance? Okay good, Iâ(TM)m not the only one. Not only is the film very poorly written, but itâ(TM)s also predictable to boot. Basing your entire film around two people when everyone else around them are far interesting, was a bad move.

Now I wanted to like this movie, I did. But thereâ(TM)s so much wrong with it that a recommendation is rather hard to come by. When the film focuses on Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx, itâ(TM)s great. But when it doesnâ(TM)t, which is most of the time, itâ(TM)s time to put the hair and guitars away.

Nothinâ(TM) but a good time? More like Sometimes itâ(TM)s a good time, and other times itâ(TM)s just nothinâ(TM).