ROCK YOU like a stiff breeze

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How�s my hair? Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand compare coifs. (POSTMEDIA DAVID JAMES)

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No animals were harmed to make Cruise�s hair shirt. (POSTMEDIA DAVID JAMES)

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Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta at the seedy Bourbon club. (POSTMEDIA DAVID JAMES)

Apparently, the '80s are the new '50s.

The movie musical Rock of Ages wraps up the music, the dubious fashions and the elaborate hair formations of the mid-'80s in a glitzy package that is equal parts wistful nostalgia and gentle mockery. It does this in much the same way the musical Grease was a paean to '50s sex, thugs and rock 'n' roll from the perspective of the sophisticated '70s.

The difference is the music. Rock of Ages is what is known as a "jukebox musical," a piece of musical theatre constructed from pre-existing musical libraries. See also: Mamma Mia, concocted from the ABBA songbook, Jersey Boys (The Four Seasons), Movin' Out (Billy Joel) and so on.

In short, Rock of Ages is to the classic Broadway musical as a K-Tel compilation is to Steven Sondheim.

That is not to dismiss the movie entirely. The stage show's author, Chris D'Arienzo, puts all his creative energy into cobbling together a plot that uses a not-wide-ranging selection of hair-metal anthems such as Sister Christian, Wanted Dead or Alive and We're Not Going to Take It, and he does so with some success. The result is a movie that suggests a throbbing romantic heartbeat beneath the feathered hair, spandex pants and fur vests of the '80s rocker.

Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is a naive Oklahoma girl who gets off the bus in Los Angeles to pursue dreams of stardom in Hollywood... where her suitcase is promptly stolen.

Coming to her rescue is Drew (the improbably handsome Diego Boneta), getting her a job at The Bourbon, a seedy Whiskey-a-Go-Go-esque establishment on Sunset Boulevard.

In the front office of the club, hard-partying manager Dennis (Alec Baldwin, miscast but amusing) and his assistant Lonny (Russell Brand, well-cast yet perversely not amusing) are placing all their hopes in their failing club on a one-night gig by Axl Rose-like rocker Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) and his band on the eve of his pursuing a solo career.

As it happens, Stacee Jaxx is so drug- and booze-addled, the only thing he could rightfully said to be pursuing is an early grave. He is told as much by Rolling Stone reporter Constance Sack (Malin Akerman), who concludes a disastrous interview by daring to speak truth to power chords, commencing an even more unlikely romantic subplot.

Director Adam Shankman takes a leaf from his past musical hit, Hairspray, by concocting a feminine villain representing the conservative status quo. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Patricia Whitmore, the religious-zealot wife of L.A.'s priapic mayor (Bryan Cranston) with a Tipper Gore-like agenda of cleaning up the Sunset Strip, starting with The Bourbon.

It is one contrivance too many, frankly. Rock of Ages is not so much an organic movie musical but a calculated two-pronged effort to grab a demographic of middle-aged former metalheads and Glee fans.

Yet the movie is not without its unlikely pleasures, including Cruise bringing his star quality to bear on the dissipated rock god Stacee Jaxx. Cruise's racy duet with Akerman on the song Waiting for a Girl Like You is a particularly refreshing departure from the days when screen lovers would gaze into each others eyes while warbling their love songs.

Suffice it to say, Jaxx sings to another body part entirely.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Other voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of Rock of Ages:

It's enough to make you "stop believin.'"

-- Roger Moore, McClatchy Tribune News Service

Tom Cruise has huge fun -- so audiences will too -- as rock god Stacee Jaxx, all leather chaps, tattoos, sexual magnetism and a pet monkey pushing a drinks trolley.

-- Roz Laws, Birmingham Post

Adam Shankman was largely responsible for the 2007 film version of Hairspray. That title would be equally fitting for his new picture Rock of Ages, a primped and volumized jukebox musical that feels significantly longer than is altogether natural.

-- Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

If this era was a formative time in your life and you're feeling a yearning for kitschy nostalgia, Rock of Ages provides a sufficiently fun little escape.

-- Christy Lemire, Associated Press

A retro rom-con whose aim is true, this Broadway musical adaptation does please a crowd, especially if that crowd loves 'em some 1980s rock and roll.

-- Joanna Langfield, The Movie Minute

Given the proliferation of high school musicals and American idols on TV, the spectacle of aspiring young singers belting out an umpteenth cover of Journey offers little in the way of novelty value.

-- Justin Chang, Variety

(Shankman) succeeds in draining most of the fun from a vehicle that was all about the winking humour of its flagrant cheesiness.

-- David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

-- Compiled by Shane Minkin

Movie review

Rock of Ages

Starring Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta and Tom Cruise

Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital

PG

123 minutes

2 1/2 out of five stars

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 15, 2012 D1