(USA, 124 min.)
Dir. Adam Shankman; Writ. Justin Theroux, Chris D’Arienzo,
Allan Loeb
Starring: Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Tom Cruise, Alec
Baldwin, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bryan Cranston,
Malin Ackerman, Mary J. Blige.
A whopping heat wave is spreading across the land. It’s hot
enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk (but given the humidity, it might boil
faster), so the air-conditioned multiplex is the place to be. Moreover, just
when one is sweating for escapism, Rock
of Ages brings harmless, groovy, family-friendly fun to the big screen.
This new musical by Adam Shankman (Hairspray)
is a welcome respite in a season that’s been serving mostly dark meat, and
while Rock of Ages might not be the
year’s most substantial film– if your favourite musical is Une femme est une femme then this film probably isn’t for you – it
provides just the right thing for anyone looking to beat the heat and have a
good time. Rock of Ages is simply two
hours of toe-tapping, fist-pumping, dance-in-your-seat fun.
The film is based on the hit Broadway musical that sees
Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough from “Dancing with the Stars” and the Footloose remake) roll into Hollywood
with dreams of being a singer. She’s just a small town girl living in a lonely
world until she meets Drew (Diego Boneta, Mean
Girls 2) who is also an aspiring singer. Drew also happens to work at the
Strip’s popular rock venue The Bourbon Room, so he gets Sherrie a waitressing
job from the bar’s owner/manager pair, Dennis (Alec Baldwin, who actually sings
fairly well) and Lonny (Russell Brand). Baldwin and Brand almost steal the show
as the fun Tweedledee and Tweedledum buffoons who run The Bourbon Room.
At the same time that Drew and Sherrie are using The Bourbon
Room to get their big shot, others are trying to shut the place down. This
mission is led by the Mayor’s wife, a Tipper Gore-esque moralizer named
Patricia Whitmore, played Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is clearly having a riot as
a ballbreaker with shoulder pads). Patricia thinks that sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll
are a plague against America. There are two main targets to her campaign: The
Bourbon Room, since it’s the hotspot of Eighties’ euphoria, and Stacee Jaxx,
the heartthrob rocker played by Tom Cruise, who just happens to be headed for
his last concert at The Bourbon Room before launching a solo career.
Cruise performs well as the show’s central rocker. He is a
long way from his days of dancing in his underwear in Risky Business, but he still has a flair for the old time rock and
roll and channels a few of the era’s biggest stars while offering some very
good vocals. He also plays Stacee Jaxx a little à la Frank T.J. Mackey with a
little bit of Joaquin Phoenix weirdness. Most of Stacee’s story figures around
an interview with a Rolling Stone
reporter played by Malin Ackerman (another surprisingly good vocalist), which
prompts him to get his career back on track after it was marred by his
sleazebag manager Paul (amicably played by Paul Giamatti, although he sings
only slighter better than Pierce Brosnan). Paul is now to setting his sights on
Drew as his next big star. As did Stacee, it looks like Drew will have to
choose between love and fame.
Boneta doesn’t fair as well as Cruise does, although he
ranks among the film’s better vocalists. Hough, however, has considerable
screen presence to carry the musical numbers and the dramatic interludes of the
film. Best among those are her scenes with Mary J. Blige’s strip club
songstress, whose powerful voice eclipses many of the singers in the film.
The star-crossed lovers scenario of Rock of Ages might not be anything new, nor is the Burlesque-y plot about saving a
nightclub, but the film provides a fun romp of nostalgia for rock fans or a
crash course in eighties hits for freshmen. Rock
of Ages tells its story with an amiable mash-up of some of the greatest
hits of the 1980s. This is truly an ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ breed of
musical, with fairly little of the film advanced by dialogue and the majority
of the plot moved forward by spirited Glee-ish
covers of the hit songs. There might be one power-ballad too may within the
playlist, but Rock of Ages is a
love-story as much as it is a tribute to the heyday of rock and roll. The
number of slower songs balances the film, too, since the numbers that are more
upbeat find some difficulty in providing big showstopping sequences that are
usually the centrepieces of musicals, such as the “Cell Block Tango” in Chicago or “You Can’t Stop the Beat in Hairspray.
The choreography by Mia Michaels (“So You Think You Can
Dance”) fares pretty well, though, especially if one considers that the
relatively simple structure of glam rock was popularized for head banging and for
easy two-step dances by drunken white guys. Much of the songs in Rock of Ages work, however, because they
embrace the fun, silliness, and excess of the eighties. Among the highlights of
the film are the hilarious love ballad spoof of Reo Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight
This Feeling” as sung by Baldwin and Brand, a lively all-cast rendition of
Journey’s “Any Way You Want It,” and the response/refrain duel of “We’re Not
Gonna Take It”/“We Built This City” headlined by Zeta-Jones and Brand that
brings the film to its fateful showdown.
One can’t help but wonder what Julie Taymor might have done
with this rock musical in terms of taking the music a step further and
exploring the time from which it emerged (re: Across the Universe), but Shankman nevertheless captures the fun
sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll character of the eighties. (Except for the drugs – this
is a family film, after all.) For example, Rock
of Ages takes a fun shot at the hypocrisy of Regan-era conservatism and of
the Christian Right with Catherine Zeta-Jones’s spirited head-lining of “Hit Me
with Your Best Shot that includes some fun intercuts to the Mayor (Bryan
Cranston) getting slapped in the rectory while his wife dances in the pews.
With campy, silly numbers like this one, Rock
of Ages unabashedly channels the vibe of rock-and-roll that simply asks
fans to rock out and have a good time. Rock
of Ages is exactly that: a good time. It’s so much fun that members of the
audience should wave their iPhones and demand an encore.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rock of Ages is currently playing in wide release.
