Rock of Ages reviewed by Mark Kermode

Rock of Ages right okay so coming coming out of all the kinda you know hearing my reservations about Cosmopolis I couldn't get you want to talk about not getting involved Rock of Ages adapted from the Broadway West End hit by Adam Shankman who of course did hairspray and you know which was really good fun and I went along see this last night the view in East Lee desperate for guilty pleasure I tried to go and see it in the morning at ten o'clock and my car had exploded on the way to what just the engine just died as if in some awful foreboding so I went to the 9 o'clock screening yesterday and i sat there seen with a paying audience sorry a set in 1980s LA and a where a small town girl ships up at the Borbon rooms to see Arsenal not that Arsenal the band Arsenal the band called art yes what kind of a stupid name for a band is now I know they were gonna be called Tottenham but they're bailing bill oblong and while she's out there she meets a guy who has a songwriting heart let's hear a clip you're gonna sing me so that I can sure you are gonna sing whether you like it or not now breathe hey don't be nervous okay uh this is something I kind of started working on after we uh met last night girl living in a lonely world she took the midnight train goin anyway I sing her in smoky room the smell of wine cheap perfume for a smile they can share the night and it goes on and on and on I love it it's so beautiful I can't believe you wrote that yeah it goes on and on and ok so now look so I went along looking for the Mamma Mia thing ok you know the mom may think actually a soft rock version well here's the problem well there are many problems where do we begin firstly it's rubbish secondly in the case of Mamma Mia Mamma Mia has in its DNA ABBA songs right ABBA songs are indestructible even when moved to death by Pierce Brosnan ok liberal ease this has at its heart rock but not rock that kind of soft rock that I hated the first time round and frankly never wanted to hear potential and by radio to list we built this city on rock and roll very popular really yeah ok I mean there isn't there some own account now there's there's a moment they don't do that here there's a moment in it when they do I love rock and roll and it sounds like punk rock sim blimey they're doing Joan Jett they've gone really outside of it you know there is an every rose has its thorn remember Bill and Ted Byrne says exon adventure there's a brilliant bit in bill tears excellent adventure when they are asked to do something philosophical in front of I think it's so great Socrates and Bill or Ted calories goes will like you know every rose like has its thorn and then goes that area what's Keanu in me but and it's very funny in this when they play every rose has its thorn it's not funny they kind of mean it in a big head you know shoulder-padded sort of way but also in a you thought it was bad the first time around it's even worse in the cat they we also there's that there's a subplot which is that Catherine beta-blocker is running this campaign to get the rock and roll club closed down okay because actually she's got dark secret in that past because in fact this band who were coming back to play they were led by this rockstar played by Tom Cruise now when you see the trailer you think okay look at this look naff eighties revivalism with naff soft rock tunes and big hair and you know everybody Burt it'll be fun right okay and that's one of the things that be fun about it is Tom Cruise doing the funny rock star because you saw Tom Cruise in risky business you know that scene when he's left alone on his own and he's then he but he puts on the shades and he dances around it's really funny I like invest in Magnolia yes and the thing that's missing from this is any of that Ellen in Magnolia is a dangerous dangerous and sort of broiling sexuality and really sort of vile nasty creepy person all that none of that is here all you think of something like Tropic Thunder in which he's doing a really funny self-deprecating sort of poisonous character here none of that at all here when you see him on stage being the rock star all you think is a you and McGregor was really good doing an impression of Iggy Pop in velvet goldmine the film that nobody went to see and be you're too short to wear those leather trousers sorry and see do you have to be told to a leather trousers look at Tom Cruise in this I mean Alyssa and I speak as a leather trouser offender of your you know I mean I did an entire series of Danny Baker's after all wearing a ludicrous pair of leather trousers and you know and Milo still got them I think they've walked off into the sunset if I have them I don't know that I have them anymore I certainly hope I don't I might come next week in leather trousers have you got leather trousers yeah think so did you know ever wear them a woman tell you once yeah well I wore them on telly ten times okay and that's in a and okay so but he's really really bad and he does this thing that's got arching his body and a weighted to look like he doesn't look like Iggy Pop he looks like David bear everyone looks like David berry to me it looks like David berry doing the Elephant Man on stage doing that kind of weird sort of bodily contortions thing it's I'm sorry what performance are you doing what does you not lean like a jump on Jovie kind that's what he's meant to be being like but sort of you know with a kind of Iggy Pop Overton but it doesn't it doesn't it's none of the charm that you would actually expect from Tunku so rubbish music in the first place now done more rubbish Lee a plot that is clearly an amalgam of a coyote ugly at the top end and burlesque at the other end I mean there's a lining in which one says I'm a stripper yet no you're not no you're not you just walked out that film but I mean it makes burlesque look like showgirls in terms of it's sort of you know gritty Deb it's fine you don't come to this sort of stuff for grittiness you don't come to it for downs is what you come to it for is you come to it for big smiles big laughs in the same way that you did with mum and me and I said mum Amir made the world turn upside down and suddenly I realized that being on a Greek island with you know a people dancing around in dungarees singing mum it was great in the case of this I went in thinking I never liked soft rock in the first place I came out of it thinking that was grueling grueling grueling I like Tom Cruise it's one of the rubbishes performance he's ever given and here's the really big honking mistake Russell Brand's in it right Russell Brand plays this sort of this British guy who's living in LA and he does the worst British accent I have ever heard to Brummie accent isn't it that he does well I think it's meant to be sort of Ozzy Osbourne but I do a terrible Brummie accent it sounds like the worst American actor doing an impression of it I mean everyone else in in the movie is American Alec Baldwin is the best thing in it even he's not very good Russell Brand sounds like English is a second language and he's doing an American version of an English and it is I mean painful really painful it's like they messed up the casting I mean brand has played the become of the rock star character and taken get him to the Greek and yet for some reason it's not only spectacularly miscast but he is spectacularly bad and I like Russell Brand and I am getting fed up of apologizing for Russell Brand being rubbish in movies there comes a point it's like you know enough already be good in a movie just do something in which you're good rather than doing something else in which you're rubbish it was boring it were came out with a stench of you know sort of bouffant hair and I can talk about bouffant has a hairspray in my nostrils thinking if I ever never never never hear any of those songs ever again it will be too so it was boring as anything and I just wanted to smile and I just wanted to go oh great it's a good bit of you know fluffy 80s no sound and it was like a headache you

Channel: kermodeandmayo

Views: 87,104

Keywords: Mark, Kermode, Simon, Mayo, 5Live, BBC, review, Rock, of, Ages, Russell, Brand, Tom, Cruise

Id: od3zaq7AgCE

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 15 2012