Full disclosure here. I hate musicals. Never have been my thing, and for many people they can well be an acquired taste. A few years back, w...
Full disclosure here. I hate musicals. Never have been my thing, and for many people they can well be an acquired taste. A few years back, with must insistence from my wife, I endured Mama Mia, and as much as I tried to dislike it, I found my foot tapping along. But I put it down to dementia. So if truth be told, I wasn’t much looking forward to checking out Rock Of Ages. Granted, its fantastic cast including Tom Cruise, Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin really piqued my interest. Either way, with a bunch of hesitation swelling and that constant hatred of musicals, I took my seat for Rock Of Ages.
The Bourbon room, is the hottest place in L.A. A real Rock ‘n Roll dive. Run by Dennis and Lonny (Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand), this is THE place to be. Not to mention the venue that gave Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) his first gig. A campaign to clean up the city targets the venue and attempts to shut it down, before Jaxx kicks off his solo career. Combine this with a number of love stories, copious amounts singing and the most awesome leather clad baboon in cinema history and you have one of the feel good movies of the year!
Credit where credit is due for this Broadway stage to big screen movie, in particular to its cast. Besides Mickey (the absolutely epic baboon), Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Julianne Hough, Catherine Zeta Jones and the rest of the cast are fantastic, brimming with personality and lungs full of rock. And then you have Diego Boneta. An actor who has spent an amount of time on TV and the dude has really arrived here. He’s incredibly likeable with a great screen presence and his genuine chemistry with his on screen rock stars.
Oh, and lets not forget Tom Cruise. No doubt many people are aware of Johnny Depp or even Bruce Willis’s musical exploits, but Cruise is unknown territory here. Sure he’s “sung” in a couple of movies, but nothing like this. From the very outset (with one of the must unique entrances Cruise has ever made on film), Tom Cruise simply blows you away. His voice is incredible. Besides his vocal talents, he seems like he had a blast making this (as does everybody to be fair) and is utterly convincing as an eccentric rock star. But again, it all comes back to every time the guy is on stage with a microphone. You will be impressed EVERY TIME. Phenomenal stuff.
The soundtrack in Rock of Ages is fantastic, with track after track that will have you tapping your feet and clapping along. And it features one of the greatest mashups you’ll hear in quite some time. All that said, in the latter half things slow down a bit and a number of scenes (lap dancing club) really take the audience out of the zone. Granted, when the finale kicks in, you forget that 15 minutes could have been taken off the running time. And while it could have been quite easy to turn this into a bunch of music videos, Adam Shankman does a really decent job of keeping everything unique and genuine!
Besides the humour, the baboon and the fantastic singing, there’s enough errect nipples, sexy bottoms and crotch shots here to really get the pulse racing. Simply put, Rock Of Ages is the feel good movie of the year. The cast are fantastic and Tom Cruise is worth the admission price alone. From somebody who hates musicals, this is (deep breath)….A MUST SEE. Rock Of Ages will make you fall in love with Rock ‘N Roll again. Fantastic!
