Been Watching: Rock Of Ages (2012)

The story:

 Young Sherrie Christian arrives in LA hoping to become a singer. She meets barman and aspiring rocker Drew Boley and winds up working alongside him at the famous rock bar The Bourbon Room and having the sort of montage-friendly relationship you get in musicals..

 As it happens, The Bourbon Room is verging on financial ruin and the owner is relying on a special farewell gig by rock superstar Stacee Jaxx to save his bacon. Assuming he remembers to show up, that is. 

 Meanwhile, the Mayor and his ambitious wife are hoping to make a name for themselves by cleaning up the infamous Sunset Strip once and for all. 

 Can true love conquer adversity? 

Will the Power of Rock defeat The Man? 

Will Stacee Jaxx ever manage to reunite his alcohol addled brain with the rest of Planet Earth? 

How many 80s Rock Songs can you squeeze into one film and how many of them are a UK audience likely to know? 

 What the hell is the deal with the baboon anyway?

  I think this film was supposed to be the "Mama Mia" for 2012. Instead this film ended up becoming one of this years high-profile box-office failures. Only time will tell if the DVD fares better.

 As to why the film failed, I'm not sure.

 I have a theory though.

 I think the idea was to cash in on the "Glee/High School Musical" fad and on the current nostalgia for 80s rock. The problem?

 These two audiences don't overlap as much as you'd expect so the target audience is really "People who like 80s rock and are willing to go to a musical" and available evidence suggests there's not that many.

 The film itself isn't bad, although formulaic in places and a wee bit lightweight. 

 My big gripe is that the whole plot hinges on somebody not asking the obvious questions  until almost too late. Par for the course in this sort of thing.

Leads Julianne Hough and Diego Bonetta seem to have fallen though a wormhole from High School Musical - typical cleancut, cute youngsters and sometimes their voices don't seem to fit the songs they're singing. That's me nitpicking though, and both are watchable and likeable. 

 This leaves the field open for the supporting cast - mostly seasoned veterans - to walk away with the rest of the movie. 

  Russell Brand is perfect for this sort of thing and his double act with Alec Baldwin shows why -  although I never did work out what his accent was supposed to be.

 Catherine Zeta-Jones has already proven that she can do musicals and can do villains, so her turn as rock-hating Patricia Whitmore isn't  too much of a surprise. Tom Cruise on the other hand...

 Essentially Tom Cruise plays the role that you'd expect Russell Brand to play and does it better.

  Like a boozed up, swaggering, blend of Axl Rose and any member of Motley Crue you care to pick,  Stacee Jaxx is  part sex-god, part damaged manchild, and about as close as this film comes to the real Sunset Strip of the late 80s (a lot darker and uglier than this film would have you believe)  

 He's also got a fair set of pipes on him and if I ever found out that there's a parallel world where Tom Cruise is fronting Guns n Roses, I wouldn't be at all surprised. . 

 So to sum up: Great soundtrack , some great performances but bolted onto a film that's decent but not quite strong enough. 

 Wonder if HMV has the album?