Rock of Ages transcends stages.
If you've been anywhere near a television this week, you have probably been inundated with previews for the newest Broadway-show-turned-flick Rock of Ages. You were probably either convinced or put off by the lead billing of Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx, so let's tackle that first. Cruise portrayed Jaxx as if he were the son of Lestat from Interview with the Vampire and Guns 'n' Roses lead singer, Axl Rose with twice the libido of both.<br /><br />Cruise was unconvincing as Jaxx, and I wondered if real-life wife Katie Holmes had any qualms with the number of tongues that touched her husband's body during this film. Jaxx's costumes are outlandish and silly, particularly a certain codpiece, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from his tattoos. He is a typical rock star in that he is never fully conscious, and he enjoys wrecking things that don't belong to him. Also, he tends to drink...a lot. That being said, Jaxx does not carry the entire film, as the trailers might have you believe. If you are not a fan of Cruise's, there are plenty of other characters to entertain you. If you are a fan of his, then you will probably enjoy laughing at Jaxx's expense, which is what he also seems wont to do.<br /><br />Now that we've got that out of the way, if you were a fan of hair bands, Pat Benetar and arena rock, then this is the musical for you. Rock of Ages is jam-packed with '80s music, and does mash-ups and mini-montages equally well. You'll hear tunes from such bands as Bon Jovi, Guns 'n' Roses, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Journey, Poison, Whitesnake, Night Ranger, Twisted Sister and REO Speedwagon, amongst others.<br /><br />Rock of Ages tells the same story we've seen in Coyote Ugly and numerous other films in which the main character is a woman from a small town who flees to a bigger town with dreams of making it big, yadda, yadda, yadda. Along the way, she meets a guy and falls in love. Cue montage of happy moments. Then, some kind of misunderstanding breaks them up and they are both lost without each other, only to reunite at the end of the film. There is nothing in this plot that we haven't seen before. But then, in a film like this, plot is just the glue that holds the music together.<br /><br />The appropriately named Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is a blonde bombshell from Oklahoma who looks like a groupie but acts like a good girl. She, of course, dreams of making it big in Hollywood. She gets mugged on her first night in California, and the sexier-with-longer-hair Drew (Diego Boneta) is conveniently there to witness it. He attempts to help her to no avail, but feels equally bad for and attracted to her, so he offers her a job at "The Bourbon Room", the nightclub where he works. She eagerly accepts as a waitress, although she dreams of being a singer.<br /><br />Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) runs "The Bourbon Room" with Lonny (Russell Brand), and their presence reminded me of Empire Records if we had checked in on Joe and Lucas in ten years. One scene in particular between Baldwin and Brand was rather humorous and harkened back to the "Hello" scene in Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. When all else fails, homosexual humor tends to deliver.<br /><br />What follows is a typical love story that would occur in a film of this type, or even in an '80s film (maybe that was the point?). The wholly uninteresting subplot involves Catherine Zeta Jones as the tacky antagonist Patricia Whitmore, wife to Mayor Mike Whitmore (Bryan Cranston), who has a predictable agenda against Stacee Jaxx and his "devil music". She gathers some of the conservative women in town and they band together to picket "The Bourbon Room" and Jaxx.<br /><br />Paul Giamatti as Paul Gill, Stacee's manager, turned in the best performance of the film. He was the most convincing and enjoyable in a sea of cheesiness, weak acting and mediocrity. And we certainly saw enough close-ups of Malin Ackerman's (Constance Sack) clothed naughty bits to last us a while. Mary J. Blige has a throwaway part as the manager of a strip club, which could have shaved off some of the two hour and three minute runtime.<br /><br />All in, the performances were weak and cheesy, the dubbing did not quite match the lip syncing and the plot was nothing to write home to your mother about. But the love story drew me in, the music was entertaining and enjoyable and I wouldn't think twice about seeing this film again. When we think back on the '80s, we often squirm at memories of big hair, loud clothes and quirky music. If Rock of Ages wasn't cheesy, it wouldn't be doing its job.