Like some illegal experiment in genetic modification, this film grafts the rock anthem to the spirit of the Broadway showtune, to create a mascara'd eunuch, simpering, misshapen, and nowhere near sexy enough to be gay. It is the movie musical version of the jukebox stage show. Doubtless, like The Producers, it will be adapted back into the theatre, some time in 2017, at which time it will be even more bland and tiring. It's a sentimentalised and weirdly humourless movie — targeted at the middle-aged at heart — in which the rock scene is celebrated as a world where the descending model of Stonehenge is always the right size.
It's 1987 and wannabe rock chick Sherrie (Julianne Hough), as wholesome as Doris Day, comes to LA and meets tousle-haired Drew (Diego Boneta), who dreams of being a stadium god. Romance blossoms and well-known rock standards are reedily belted out – each of them defanged and decaffeinated – as they both get jobs waiting tables at the scuzzy-yet-legendary club the Bourbon, which is hosting a massive farewell gig for superstar Stacey Jaxx, played by Tom Cruise. He is pursued by bespectacled Rolling Stone reporter Constance Sack (Malin Akerman), who sees through his pose but may just need a good old-fashioned rock-god seeing-to. But vengeful conservative-values campaigner Patricia Whitmore (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is trying to shut down the sinful club, to the horror of its raddled owner Dennis (Alec Baldwin) and his goofy assistant Lonny (Russell Brand).
Exhibit number one for the prosecution is Russell Brand's Brummie accent, perhaps assumed in honour of Ozzy Osbourne, but which is as stilted and unconvincing as the rest of his turn here; unhappily this talented comic is somehow always misfiring on screen. Rock of Ages is very similar to the much-derided, female-centred movies like Burlesque and Coyote Ugly; the menfolk here are every bit as absurd and lame, although one middle-aged woman is ungallantly and rather humiliatingly treated. Tom Cruise's appearance cheers things up a little bit — a sub-Kurtz figure in his darkened dressing room — but not very much: nowhere near as vinegary as his appearance in Tropic Thunder or indeed his comparable character in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia.
As Dennis broods over his accounts and growls: "Taxes — they're so un-rock'n'roll", it hardly needs pointing out what Beatles number should be played, but isn't, and how complex the politics of rock'n'roll rebellion are. The irony may not be intentional. It really does go on for ages.
