Rock of Ages Review

Plot Summary:
In 1987 Los Angeles, Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) and Drew Boley (Diego Boneta) are two young people chasing their dreams in the big city. When they meet, it's love at first sight, but this love will face a series of challenges. Based on the Broadway musical of the same name.

The Positives:
While this is not the really good Adam Shankman's musical follow-up to Hairspray that I was expecting, this is still a fun one. I love all the music used in this film, I'm a huge 80's rock fan and the songs used were done well. It was fun seeing these songs put together in a cinematic way.

I also loved the production design and cinematography in this film. The sets were really put together and made it really look like 80's Los Angeles. The cinematography was a nice touch as well, making the musical numbers look good and helping the setting look nice.

I felt a huge strength of this film was the casting. Russell Brand, Julianne Hough, and Catherine Zeta-Jones do a great job acting-wise and musically as shown in previous films. However, the real show stealers are Tom Cruise and Paul Giamatti. Cruise is a true hidden diamond here, he's the most entertaining character in the film and does a really fantastic job singing. Giamatti plays a really fun villain here, any scene he's in is intriguing to watch.

There are many comedic moments in this film. Many fall through, but the ones that don't are really worth watching. Most of the good comedic moments are in musical numbers, so it really adds to the entertainment value.

The Negatives:
I was expecting a lot more from Adam Shankman after his great musical success that was 2007's Hairspray. One thing that Hairspray had that this film doesn't is a coherent and clear story. This film felt like a long compilation of music videos rather than a film. As a result, there is less time for story and more time for music. In my opinion, a musical should have equal time for story and music. This film focuses more on the music.

I said earlier that the casting was a huge strength of the film, there were two roles that I felt should have been casted differently. Alec Baldwin felt really out of place in this film. Every scene he's in he looks like he isn't having a lot of fun with the role and just wants to get each scene over with. Diego Boneta was a disaster as the main guy role. He just recites the line and his emotions act really fake. Not to mention, his voice doesn't fit in with the "rock" persona this film has, he has a consistent pop voice the entire time.

The source of the problems for this film was in the script. A majority of the comedic moments weren't funny, they were just typical slapstick if anything. That's what you'd expect from the guy who directed The Pacifier before doing musicals. There's hardly any dialogue, a majority of the film was the music. When there is dialogue, it really isn't that great, it's more cliche and overdone.

Conclusion:
Rock of Ages really tries to be a good musical, but it is more of a compilation of music videos if anything else. It's not a bad film, it's fun and nostalgic for people who like 80's rock. If Hairspray was Adam Shankman's Grease, than this would be his Grease 2. Not as good and could have been better. I don't believe Hairspray was a fluke and I want Shankman to continue to do musicals. But next time, please focus on the story. All in all, Rock of Ages is fun, but really nothing more.

Rating: 6 out of 10