Rock of Ages,... oh dear!

[Barking Spiders]

Last night I was feeling a bit masochistic and normally against my better judgement watched Rock of Ages on one of the Freeview channels.  I didn't have great expectations and yet RoA managed to still fall below these.  Oddly enough it gets 43% on Rotten Tomatoes which IMO is incredibly generous.  5 -10% is more like it. I mean Tom Cruise plays some cliched hair metal character called Stacee Jaxx ( any wordplay on the Blur song Tracey Jacks?). Russell Brand adopts a laughably bad Brummie accent who develops manlove for Alec Baldwin's character who looks more at home drinking white spirit from a bottle in a brown paper bag than managing a music venue. Then there is the usual cliche about small town boy/girl trying to make it in the big city, yada blah. As for the soundtrack oh my! It's pretty much a watery karaoke take on some of the blandest American rock of the 80s. Even the one song that has some balls -Paradise City - is turned to thin mush by Cruise. The rest of the songs are woeful. The lead female is called Julianne Hough (who? and where she now?) has the kind of thin nasal way of 'singing' so prevalent in current pop.  She's as fit as f**k mind you! The only thing that resonated with me is when the Paul Giametti character says 'rock is dead' when  trying to get his new protege join a boy band. On this basis it darn well should be.  So, anyone else seen this and what do you reckon of this and other rock movies in general?

[Low End Bee]

I managed about 3 minutes.

I will need to watch Slade in Flame tonight to cleanse my brain of it.

[stingrayPete1977]

I've seen it live on stage twice and both amateur productions were better than the Cruise version! 

[wateroftyne]

Next up, watch this. It's fantastic, and it nails life in the Midlands in the 1970s.

 

[dannybuoy]

13 minutes ago, Low End Bee said:

I managed about 3 minutes.

Same! Probably the only film I’ve ever instantly decided to switch off.

[Lozz196]

And me, pile of pony to put it mildly.

[dave_bass5]

Seen it a few times, both on stage in the west end and TV. love most the songs so its palatable.

My company has been printing the music scores for the tour of this show so i have the scores for it. My son is learning a few of the songs at the moment.

 

[mikel]

Decided to avoid when I read that Tom Cruise, that well known Rock musician, was the star.

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 3, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[bassbora]

Well my 8 year old daughter loved it few years back (yes she was eight and probably should not have been watching it) and I enjoyed it for what it is. 

Its not groundbreaking and and there was nothing original or new in it but for couple of hours I had a smile on my face and laughed few times because how stupid it is. That’s what I call entertainment which all I wanted from it.

 I expect the same from the Motley Crue movie. 

[Dronny]

Wow, I'd forgotten how bad that VH1 Def Leppard film was! In the first minute, it shows the "English countryside" with sheep wandering round... in the California deserts! Then it shows Rick Allen (pre-crash, with 2 arms) driving across "the pennines" with a road sign saying "M25 - 2 miles" from the A57!

Fair play, it's not easy to make California look like derbyshire.

I also remember a shot of some LA industrial warehouse, with a subtitle saying "Sheffield Spoon factory".

But I have to agree about Rock of Ages, the movie is terrible, and I saw the stagew show in Oxford a few days ago and quite enjoyed it. Yeah, it's cheesy and naff, but the stage show has some energy. The film is just... naff. why did they bother?

Oh, and the Leppard film... Midlands? Sheffield is the NORTH, man! ;-)

[wateroftyne]

4 minutes ago, Dronny said:

Oh, and the Leppard film... Midlands? Sheffield is the NORTH, man! 😉

Ha ha. Of course. My mistake 🙂

[Dronny]

Just now, wateroftyne said:

Ha ha. Of course. My mistake 🙂

Actually, judging by your handle, maybe Sheffield is the midlands, looking from Newcastle... of course I'd never actually admit to that 🙂

[Merton]

8 hours ago, wateroftyne said:

Next up, watch this. It's fantastic, and it nails life in the Midlands in the 1970s.

 

That is a truly awful film

[police squad]

I saw it in the west when it opened. Justin Lee Collins and Shayne Ward. It was very good.

The film, well I watched it again the other night. Truly awful

[Woodinblack]

I switched channnels and it was on just when he was on stage, badly miming. I thought it was a comedy thing to start with. I couldn't have watched that! I did wonder why a cover band was so popular though, and if the singer was trying to be a real life incarnation of Anthony Kieidis's heavy metal character in the Dani California video.

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Woodinblack

[Fastra]

I'm a big fan of all the songs - 80's rock being exactly my thing, so can watch this despite the many negatives - still end up quite enjoying it though.

[Strawbs664]

I've seen the West End show with my family and we loved it. I was disappointed with the film initially, but have come round to the cheesiness of it and will now quite happily sit through it & sing along. And I still love how they mashed up We Built This City & We're Not Gonna Take it!

My daughter, who knows what she's talking about when it comes to films, summed it up as being terrible and brilliant at the same time which is why it works. Sounds about right!

P.S. The ITV2 version had a quite a few cuts compared to the full version, and they jarred somewhat.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Strawbs664

[vantagepointrocks]

Own both the soundtrack on CD and the film on DVD and think it is great. I’ve never been much of a Tom Cruise fan, but thought he was great in the film, gave a really good performance in my eyes.

 

Seen the musical as well, but prefer the film version.

[MacDaddy]

Love the stage version, seen it a couple of times.

The problem with the film is the insertion of a 'star' into what should be an ensemble film.

The same thing happened to Suicide Squad, which rather than being an ensemble piece, became a Will Smith film, and suffered because of it. 

Rock of Ages the film, became more about having Tom Cruise in the film, than an actor portraying a blond hair metal vocalist archetype. 

[leschirons]

Never heard of it so, inkeeping with my quest for knowledge and experience, I have just Googled an image of the film poster. That was all I  needed to review this film.

It's  s h I t