I wanted to review Batman Returns for you today however due to the fact I have no Blu-Ray player currently its going to have to wait until next week when I'm able to pick up my PS3. In the meantime I thought I would do a brisk review of a film I saw last night which I really hated with a passion.
Due to being a big fan of Tom Cruise (yes really) I was eager to see Rock of Ages despite the dodgy looking trailers and the fact that I'm generally not a big fan of musicals. However, I went into the cinema with a mild expectation that I might on some level be entertained on some level. Unfortunately these expectations were far FAR from met.
Rock of Ages is a mess of a film at every stage of its existence. I may as well start with the story, or more to the point, the lack thereof. Even with the amount of characters vying for screen time one would imagine that in 123 (agonizing) minutes the majority of them would have some sort of character development right? Wrong. If you went onto Wikipedia right now and read the character synopsis' you would probably be able to learn all there is to know about them. Don't get me wrong they've all got character arcs for example Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand's characters discover they're both secretly in love with each other, but the reasoning behind this turn of events is completely unexplained leading up to the point they kiss save for one tiny shot of them looking into each other's eyes. Then, once they have their scene of romance about 3/4 of the way through the film its then completely ignored for the other 1/4 of the film. Each and every character has similar unexplained and unmotivated plots and it soon turned me to a state of utter nonchalance towards any of them.
Then there's the matter of the music. The film is obsessed with its nostalgic love for "rock n roll", but anybody who lived in the 80's or has so much as a fleeting interested in rock music will see very plainly that this is an extremely watered down representation of the rock n roll lifestyle. Yes I understand the need for the film to appeal to a wide an audience as possible, however I wonder have to wonder what demographic the film was aiming for at all. If it wants to attract rock and roll fans then go for an all out sex, drugs and rock n roll film which gives an accurately nostalgic look at the era, otherwise don't bother as far as I'm concerned. The "sex" scene between Tom Cruise and Malin Akerman is frankly pathetic and tops even the levels of cringe produced by her Watchmen sex scene. Drugs are not so much as mentioned in the film, instead all the characters drink bourbon whisky. Every one of them. It seems so instant on this act being edgy and rock n roll that it made my toes curl up every time somebody glugged a bottle of the stuff. And as for the rock music well, it's rock it it the tamest of manners. Sure they've assembled a host of great bands to pick music from, but they've just the most well known, chart topping, poppiest numbers from them. I guess that's fair enough, I wasn't expecting rare B-sides galore, but it's rarely not helped that all the renditions of the songs are utterly terrible - stripped of all passion and meaning, and chosen for each scene maybe because of one relevant line.
Upon my sigh of relief at the films ending I wondered to myself just who would actually enjoy this film. As I turned to my girlfriend however she told me that she thought it was good harmless fun and that she'd be getting it on DVD when its released. I like to imagine however that she's one of the few as the rest of the audiences reactions seemed more in line with mine than hers and thankfully the film doesn't seem to be doing anything Earth shattering at the Box Office. Its a shame to see such a great cast and concept wasted, but suffice to say I'll be more than happy to see this film sink into the obscurity it deserves.
No comments:
Post a Comment