Rock of Ages

Rock of Ages has to be the scariest film I have ever seen. And it's not because it surprisingly turned out to be good. No, this is pretty bad and there's no other way it could've turned out. But this is terrifying because however bad it is, you just don't care. I was laughing all the way through this, (sometimes even at the jokes) and I can't say that I hated this movie, however stupid it is, and however much you suspend your disbelief. We haven't had a truly terrible, campy flick in a while, usually they have been either Adam Sandler unbearable, or Twilight epic fail. It is rare to see a film that I hate and love at the same time.

Let me explain myself more, and not explain the plot because it's predictable, yet also incredibly ridiculous. There are moments when you have to suspend your disbelief, like Julianne Hough's Sherrie who travels to L.A. with a suitcase full of records instead of clothes, and yet still has a different outfit every day! And a massive amount of black eye-liner. There is no concept of time in this film either. The two main characters (Hough and Diego Boneta's Drew) do the love at first sight thing, which is fine, then they have a montage and hang out, which seems to take place over a week. But that doesn't make sense, since it's told that only a couple days after Sherrie arrives it's meant to be the last show of famed rock group Arsenal, fronted by Tom Cruise's Stacee Jaxx. It makes more (and by more I mean less) sense in the film, but there is no sense of time! Seriously, there's another montage later on to "Any Way You Want It" and it could take place over one day, but it doesn't look like it does, and yet we don't know.... GAH! But that's just a couple of the minor frustrations, and if you don't think about them, they won't ruin the movie.

Not that there aren't a million other things that would ruin the film. Let's get to the two big ones: Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough. First off, who thought these two could act? They try, they really do. But they just can't act. There are some hilarious misread lines in here, and some really off lip-synching during the songs. It's like they were overacting the dialogue and underacting the songs.
In my opinion, though, I think Julianne Hough comes off better that Diego Boneta. He's just... not what a leading man should do. I didn't find him charming, and he looked too clean-cut to be a rock n' roll enthusiast. Other actors came off better, if not by much. Catherine Zeta-Jones was awesomely over the top, Alec Baldwin was ... Alec Baldwin, Malin Ackerman was good, though her character needed a bit more work. Not that the character wasn't fleshed out in some way, she just goes through this massive change from out of no where with no real reason as to why she does it. Russell Brand was good. (You don't know how much it hurts me to give a compliment to that man) Mary J. Blige was a little wooden, but that can be forgiven because she gives the best musical performances and she doesn't do that much acting in the film anyway. And Tom Cruise seemed to think he was in a serious movie for half the time. Not that he was bad, but it wasn't til the second half where there more of a tongue in cheek attitude to his acting.

So, that's the acting down, but again if you can stand the bad acting of films like Battlefield Earth and Showgirls then this is nothing compared to them. The really bad thing about this film is the butchering of all the songs that appear in the film. Everyone sounds like Katy Perry. The autotune is turned to 11 and by god it is terrible! Except Mary J. Blige, who thankfully is in this. It's more disconcerting than anything. I love the film Chicago, but either Catherine Zeta-Jones' voice has changed drastically, or someone fucked around on the audio afterwards. None of the actors sound like themselves! The attempt to make actors Brand and Baldwin sound good (no doubt after the disastorous performance by Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia) makes them sound completely different from themselves. And so it is obvious that they are lip-synching and makes the songs even more unbearable. So this leaves me feeling that I can't fully like the songs because they sound so fake, and so I can't comment on the performances given by the cast because I know that they're fake, and judging them would be unfair.

But the thing that really pisses me off about the songs is that they are all mash-ups and they're all duets. There is only one solo song that I can think of ("Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Zeta-Jones' character) and there isn't really any point for some of them to be mash-ups or duets. The film seems to think that there are so many of them crammed into the run time. Too many of them. it fills your mind, all the fake singing. It gets in your head and drives you crazy! And one of the songs is from the 90s, while the film is set in 1987. Nice one Shankman, you really do fail at adapting musicals. I haven't seen the original stage play, but I really wish I had. It looks to be a lot more fun, a lot more hilarious and possibly more mature. For instance, the final message of the stage-play is that you don't need fame and fortune to live a truly happy life. The message of the film was... love is good? Also, Cruise's character was changed to become a much more likeable and sympathetic person, whereas in the stage-play he was a douche. This seems to be Tom Cruise making changes for his benefit rather than anyone elses, but it's not confirmed. I still blame him and Shankman.

But I said I liked this, and there has to be a reason for it. And there is. Some of the shots are so ape-shit crazy. It's like some sort of comic madman turned up and fiddled around with the director... that sounded dirty... But anyway, in order to explain what I mean, I need to tell you about my favourite scene and the best scene in the movie. Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand singing "Can't Fight This Feeling" to each other, ending with a kiss between them. Picture that to yourself. How the fuck did they come up with that? It is genius and brilliant and the fucking best thing in the entire film! But there are other little moments like this, like Tom Cruise singing into Malin Ackerman's arse. Yep, that happened too. And it's really those little moments that I reccomend the film for. Maybe not on the big screen, unless you see it on tight-arse Tuesday, but definitely for when it comes out on DVD.

And that's really it for this mess of madness. I have to say that there were a couple of jokes put in here that I actually did laugh at, but if you hate musicals give this a miss. There are a dozen other things wrong with this film that I could've brought up, but at the same time, I can't fully hate it because it was just so stupid. Could this be the Showgirls of our century? Nah, it was never going to be a great film, but I'd reccomend it in the same way I'd reccomend Showgirls in that it is unintentionally funny, just a whole lotta fun. Next review is either Take This Waltz or a list of some sort. But until then, so long, farewell, bye bye!