Rock of Ages is a half-pleasant, yet troubling musical that I can’t dismiss altogether, but I can’t say the experience of watching it was altogether enjoyable. Based on Chris D’Arienzo’s stage musical of the same name, a massive ensemble cast has come together to bring this late-’80s set story to life in such a haphazardly way that their continued musical cues play on as a crutch and the love story it means to tell is merely a forgotten sideshow the writers never seemed all that interested in telling in the first place.
The year is 1987 and we meet Sherrie (Julianne Hough) as she treks from her Midwestern roots to Los Angeles and the Sunset Strip’s iconic Bourbon Room, a bar that has played host to some of the greatest bands of all-time and in this fictional world the band at the top is Arsenal, led by front-man Stacee Jaxx (played by the show stealing Tom Cruise).
As Sherrie comes into town, a ball of energy filled with her big dream of becoming a singer, she finds her first few minutes anything but welcoming as her luggage is swiftly stolen while standing outside, admiring the Bourbon Room marquee. Rushing to her aid, but too late to make any difference, Bourbon Room bar back Drew (Diego Boneta, who just as well may have been any twenty-something soap opera actor alive) introduces himself, gets her a job and inside of about four hours falls in love with her. A bit quick for my taste, but this is a musical, we’re moving things along and at this point I’m not particularly peeved. It’s still early.
From here we meet the new mayor (Bryan Cranston) and his rock-and-roll-hating wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the latter of which has vowed to close down the Bourbon Room and clean up the Strip. Our antagonist is in place. So what’s the story? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Sherrie wants to be a singer and so does Drew. Stacee Jaxx is leaving Arsenal to go solo and his final show will be at the Bourbon Room, the very same place that launched his career way back when. Bourbon Room owner Dennis (Alec Baldwin) is tight on cash flow and needs to pay his taxes and this final concert is going to help in that matter, otherwise the mayor’s wife has total cause for shutting the place down.
Of course, things go wrong when Stacee’s manager (Paul Giamatti) takes virtually all of the money made that night, leaving the bar in the lurch, and all Dennis can do his cry on the shoulder of his best friend Lonny (Russell Brand). Meanwhile, Sherrie and Drew are falling in love but a miscommunication takes place and blabbedy blah, you know what’s going to happen there.
Otherwise, Stacee Jaxx contemplates who he really is and songs from the likes of Def Leppard, Joan Jett, Journey, Bon Jovi, Poison, Whitesnake and others are sung throughout, many not necessarily having anything to do with the plot, and herein lies one of the film’s biggest issues.
It’s one thing to try and wedge in every popular ’80s song you can. I get it, it’s nostalgic and you want people to want to sing-a-long. But it’s another to try and convince the audience it has anything to do with the plot or the narrative being told. I’ll be generous and say about 50% of the songs hit their mark in terms of pertaining to the scene, but the rest are just a reminder of the popular songs we were all listening to 30 years ago.
One specific music-related nitpick comes when Drew begins singing a song to Sherrie that he wrote five hours after meeting her (and no, somehow it’s not Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherry”). It turns out the song is Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'”, and while it’s one of the film’s more applicable songs when it comes to the narrative, it would have been nice had this been the one truly original song in the film. Fortunately, Rock of Ages has a good sense of humor about itself. As soon as Drew starts to sing, in your head, you’re saying, “He didn’t write that, he stole a Journey song!” and it’s actually funny, but this brings me to my even larger complaint. You never believe the relationship between these two, and the writers and director Adam Shankman (Hairspray) don’t seem to care.
Instead of building a relationship, Shankman and crew are more interested in set pieces and ’80s hair band rock-and-roll. A trumped up misunderstanding is put in place, our two leads are separated and things go a bit haywire. Things really start to sputter when Mary J. Blige comes in as the owner of a gentleman’s club and offers Sherrie a job, an entire portion of the film that didn’t need to exist.
Where Rock of Ages gets things right is everything having to do with Tom Cruise who is joined by Malin Akerman playing a “Rolling Stone” reporter. Stacee Jaxx is a drunken rock star whose closest comparison is probably Cruise’s Magnolia alter-ego Frank T.J. Mackey. Often shirtless and introduced wearing chaps only and his manhood covered by a silver skull as a codpiece, he’s a sexually charged character whose scenes with Akerman are surprisingly racy for a PG-13-rated film. To this point the entire film should have been about him because when he’s not on screen all you’re doing is waiting for him to come back and when he arrives the rest of the film seems so small by comparison.
Otherwise, Baldwin and Brand are the film’s only other solid beats outside of a quick scene involving T.J. Miller, a “Spot Debbie Gibson” moment and I’ll give Catherine Zeta-Jones a share of appreciation considering she gave the film her all. But the acting, outside of Hough and Boneta, isn’t the problem. It’s the narrative, which is more intent on jamming songs down our throats and unable to tell even the simplest of stories and the overall film suffers for it.
I can’t begrudge anyone for having fun with Rock of Ages, even I laughed quite a bit, but overall it’s just a mediocre piece of filmmaking with brief moments of greatness. The lulls in entertainment are enough for me to not recommend it, but I know there are others out there that will likely love it.
