Tom
Cruise tries valiantly, bringing all his ‘star power’ to his inflated
role in “Rock Of Ages”, but along with all the inflated production
numbers he fails as well as the numbers do. The second shot of him in
the movie are his bare buns and they are holding up well unfortunately
though he has a great body for a 50 year old---I bet that makes a lot of
you reading this feel old!--it’s not the body he had in the 1980s when
this picture takes place.

All
the cliches are here from boy (Diego Boneta) meets girl (Julianne
Hough), boy loses girl, boy gets girl plus the owner (Alec Baldwin) who
will lose his club because he can’t pay his taxes while the mayor's
(Bryan Cranston) wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) aims to get the club closed
by leading groups of protesters to march in front of the club. Oh,
don’t forget the storylines about the big rock star full of himself who
owns a monkey and then we have to have the Black ‘Madam” (Mary J. Blige)
with a heart of gold and the conniving manager (Paul Giamatti). By the
way we might as well throw in the reporter (Malin Akerman who at one
 point I confused with Hough) with glasses, who writes a nasty story
about the rock star, takes off her glasses, lets her hair down and I bet
you can guess who she winds up with. To keep the movie contemporary we
have to have the gay angle. Darn it I didn’t mention about the mayor’s
other life--no, that’s not the gay angle--or his wife and who she use to
be. In both cases you probably won’t be the least surprised. Not having
enough plot lines the writers (Chris D’Arienzo, Allan Loeb and Justin
Theroux--D’Arienzo wrote the book for the Broadway hit by himself)
 bring in Russell Brand as the manager of the club. Would you be
surprised to hear that ‘the girl’ is a country girl from Tulsa who has
come to Hollywood to be a star singer? I didn’t think so.

All
the actors acquit themselves well but after seeing Brand in the remake
of “Arthur” and in this film I might avoid future films of his.
Zeta-Jones puts herself out there, looks great and handles her “Hit Me
With Your Best Shot” as the winner she is. Cruise has to be given a big
hand for really putting himself out there, sometimes going overboard but
giving his all to the role and his image. If, as it says in the
credits, it is his voice then he deserves the kudos for his singing.

The
musical numbers are so over produced that as familiar as you may be
with metal rock/hard rock music all the songs blend into one. They all
are edited very poorly which is the fault of the director, Adam
Shankman, and/or the editor, Emma E. Hickox.

“Rock
of Ages” was originally an off-Broadway show and then was transferred
to Broadway where it is still playing. It was/is mainly the interaction
between the actors and audience when the former broke/break  the 4th
wall plus the feeling, at times, of a rock concert that has made it so
successful .

There
are 20+ songs on the soundtrack, that was released this month, and if
you are into the music of Bon Jovi, Guns ‘N Roses, Foreigner, Journey,
Poison, Twisted Sister, REO Speedwagon, etc., then download or buy the
soundtrack and enjoy it as that would be a better investment of your
money and time.