Rock of Ages: Did It Do the 80's Justice?

The 1980's was a time that our parent's generation likes to brag about as being the decade with the "best" music. It was a flashy, glamorous time full of hair bands and glam rock that music still finds inspiration from today. But did this musical by Adamn Shankman (Hairspray) really show off the seemingly amazing decade that was the 80's?

The movie itself started off as a Broadway musical, just as Shankman's other hit Hairpsray did. Everyone seemed to love Hairspray but could he be lucky enough to pull off another amazing Broadway-turned-movie hit? Let's take a breakdown of the film's main elements and see.

Acting

In the film we see well known actors such as reknowned Tom Cruise as the insane and wacky rocker Stacee Jaxx, funny man Russell Brand as Lonny the crazy and funny right-hand man to actor Alec Baldwin as Dennis Dupree, owner of the popular bar The Bourben Room in Los Angeles.

Fresh faces such as Diego Boneta and dancer-turned-actress Julianne Hough play the roles of Drew Boley and Sherrie Christian, play young musician with a dream and small town girl moving to big city to find herself.

Other background characters were played by actresses such as Catherine Zeta-Jones and even Mary J. Blige, while others were mainly fresh faces and seemingly unknown actors and actresses as well as cameos from 80's rockers such as Sebastian Bach (Skid Row)

Overall, the acting was very good and believable, once you got past the musical number outbreaks every few minutes. The connection between lovebirds Drew (Boneta) and Sherrie (Hough) was sweet and seemingly genuine, although fast paced and quickly progressing.

Singing

All of the actors did their own singing in the movie, which was nice and refreshing compared to the lip syncing we sometimes see in movies that involve the character to sing. Though they did their own singing, the covers of the 80's hits such as "Sister Christian" (Night Ranger) and "Pour Some Sugar On Me" (Deff Leppard) were heavily auto-tuned and much like what one would call a "Metal" version of the hit television show Glee.

Plotline

The plot was more or less small town girl Sherrie Christian (Hough) moving to the big city of Los Angeles where she encounters city boy and young musician Drew Boley (Boneta) where he gets her a job at the bar he works at, The Bourben Room. They soon fall in love and all is well until he thinks she's slept with crazy famous rocker Stacee Jaxx. It all goes down hill form there and we also see the struggles of Stacee Jaxx as he deals with inner demons and falling in love with a journalist from the popular music magazine The Rolling Stones.

The plot also follows the story of Drew's struggle as a musician and Stacee Jaxx's manager seemingly taking advantage of young Drew. We learn that the mayor's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is obsessed with closing down The Bourben Room in an attempt to "clean up" Los Angeles. Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) owner of The Bourben Room is also followed with his struggles to keep the legendary bar open and his escapades with right hand man Lonny (Russell Brand.)

Overall, I would say that the plot is very cliche and rather poorly done, as it rushes things along and pulls in random stuff just to make the storyline funnier and not put you to sleep between flamboyant musical numbers. I would also say that it is pretty busy and flashy, but isn't that what the 80's was? Flamboyant, busy, flashy, and almost tacky?

Should You Go See This Movie?

I would definitely suggest people to go see this movie, if not just for the fun, upbeat music that it's packed with. Born as a 90's child, I watched the whole thing wishing that I were a teenager or young adult in this time period, as it all seemed so alive and flashy. The acting combined with the alright singing and musical numbers was deliciously attention grabbing as well as the tacky fashions and costumes used to give the whole thing the complete 80's feel.

Overall, it's just an incredibly fun movie with catchy music and laugh out loud, zany humour that's sure to make you laugh at least a few times. I'd definitely call it a hit and a movie that I would like to purchase once it's released to DVD. It met all of my expectations and perhaps more!