Songs in rock of ages movie movie#

Songs in rock of ages movie movie#

Tom Cruise (who belts commendably and highlights his gameness by entering the movie bedazzled crotch first) and Malin Akerman doing the magnificently maudlin 'I Wanna Know What Love Is' as a ballad to one night stands is a highlight.

HeвЂ™s helped by a cast who commit absolutely, either incapable of embarrassment or unaware they should be. In Hairspray he snuck the segregation story in quietly under the jaunty pop, and here he draws wit from songs written with none. But Adam Shankman has immense skill in elevating tackiness. Blige playing a woman whose sole characteristic is belting it out quite loudly when needed. And there are certainly times when it could have used judicious cutting вЂ“ itвЂ™s a good 25-minutes too long and several roles are pointless, like Mary J. It would be very easy for this movie star karaoke session to fall apart after the first couple of hits, so little is there to hold it together. Bon Jovi spent years writing plots like this and resolving them in four minutes. Inevitably, strippers, motorbikes, whisky and The Man all figure before the big finish. A girl (Hough, adorable) arrives in 1980s Hollywood with double denim on her back and a few quarters in her purse a boy (Boneta, endearing) works a bar both dream of love and fame. In a way thatвЂ™s either very smart or very lazy, the plot follows the same shallow arc as your typical rock anthem. ItвЂ™s utterly ridiculous, a tequila shot of a movie: cheap and thin but able to addle your senses until youвЂ™re in no position to judge anything. Essentially, any story here is just filling time until they can have someone say вЂњWe built this city on rock and rollвЂќ, вЂњI wanna rockвЂќ or вЂњI want to know what love isвЂќ and then sing the rest of the song as we all shuffle along in recognition.

ItвЂ™s a mixtape musical, in which all the songs are old, popular hair-rock numbers, chosen because they have a title that fits a broad emotion, even if the lyrics are basically meaningless. Rock Of Ages is not a musical in the artistic sense, where songs are specifically written to convey what the character is feeling, what they want or the fact that theyвЂ™ve just arrived in a big city with an awful lot of dreams.