Rating of
3/4
Rock of Ages
MovieAddict - wrote on 04/01/13
Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is your typical small-town girl from Oklahoma who decides to pursue her dreams of being a singer in Los Angeles. Upon arriving, she is mugged and loses her suitcase with all her favorite records. Drew Boley (Diego Boneta), a city boy, witnesses Sherrie being mugged and helps her out by getting her a job as a waitress where he works, at the Bourbon Room.
Everything is going just peachy and then that silly thing that happens in so many teenage love stories occurs where one person assumes the other one did something to betray them, and instead of actually confronting them about it, they just assume they're right and ruin everything they have going for them. (I think this is just about the moment where half the audience realized it was only a matter of minutes before she would join a strip club.)
Meanwhile, the club's owner Lonny Barnett, is trying to find a way to deal with unpaid taxes that threaten the club, and decide to book Stacee Jaxx, lead singer of huge rock band Arsenal to perform at the Bourbon, where he started. Upon hearing of Stacee's upcoming concert, Patricia Whitmore, (Catherine Zeta Jones) the religiously conservative wife of Mayor Mike Whitmore, organizes her church to protest in front of the Bourbon Room, planning to shut them down in an attempt to rid L.A. of its "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" image. But Lonny recognizes her from a photo inside the sleeve of one of Arsenal's old records, and exposes her as a former groupie of Arsenal, and a hypocrite, in front of everyone.
Tom Cruise did a great job of portraying an aging rock star, and looked very hot in those leather chaps. His singing voice was also surprisingly good! Major disappointment for me was giving DWTS Hough’s character a dancing job and we didn’t see much of that. What an unforgivable waste of talent. (I’m better off watching DWTS reruns to see more of Hough’s moves)
If you're an 80's music fan, see it for that if nothing else.Featuring the music of several 1980s rock artists including Def Leppard, Journey, Scorpions, Poison, Foreigner, Guns N' Roses, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Bon Jovi, David Lee Roth, Twisted Sister, Whitesnake, and others this soundtrack will be heaven to your ears. Three stars for the music alone.
