It is one of those interesting coincidences where a Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise and a Broadway star MiG Ayesa would fight it out with the same material, Rock of Ages, showing at exactly the same dates in Manila. Cruise is a world famous multi-awarded Hollywood film actor-producer whose outspoken and, at times, peculiar behavior has caused him to straddle the ranks of “most popular” to “most hated” in the course of his career. Pushing, 50, Cruise has now staked his reputation on live singing for the first time as the over-the-hill rocker Stacee Jaxx, a decision typical of the many such options he has chosen in his life.
We rushed to the theater prepared for a fun musical, not too many critics enjoyed. All the audience was interested in was how Cruise fared in his singing. On a scale of one to 10, we would say eight, to Mary J. Blige’s 10 playing Justice Charlier, owner of The Venus Club (New York Undercover TV series, Prison Song film)… Quite familiar with some of Cruise’s movies like Top Gun, Born on the Fourth of July, The Last Samurai, Mission Impossible, it seemed to us that the actor was simply raring to play a rock star. We had read somewhere that his forebears had been opera singers. This could have pushed him to train for four months to sing convincingly.
Others with meaty roles in the film are Catherine Zeta Jones, Tony awardee for Best Actress in a Musical, 2010 for A Little Night of Music; the young and innocent country singer from Oklahoma Julianne Hough (two-time champion of TV series Dancing with the Stars and films Burlesk and Footloose), and her love interest Diego Boneta (TV teen dramas Pretty Little Liars and 9210) as bartender assistant at The Bourbon Room, aching to become a rock star. More important roles go to the much- admired Alec Baldwin (seven-time winner for 30 Rock TV comedy series) as manager of The Bourbon; Russell Brand who helps Alec come out of the closet; Bryan Cranston as Los Angeles mayor, husband to Zeta Jones who wants to clean up the city of grime and Rock & Roll; and Paul Giamatti,Cruise’s shoddy manager who is only after the money Cruise makes.
The film is an adaptation of the 2006 Chris D’Arienzo jukebox comedy rock musical hit on Broadway with a romance told through the hits of Jon Bon Jovi, Guns n’ Roses, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Journey, Poison, Europe, Twisted Sister, Night Ranger, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Whitesnake, and others.
The critics love to hate Rock of Ages. The Associated Press feels there’s too much Foreigner on the soundtrack. No one ever needs to hear Starship’s We Built This City played in public and Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin has grown tiresome with its inclusion in Glee and The Sopranos.
With everyone talking of Stacee when the movie opens, he can’t help but be impressive by the time he shows up, says Nick Pinkerton. Although he finds the “dissolute rock-god gags old hat…Cruise is a dynamic, kabuki-esque, full-body performer and he gives Stacee something between the boozy silverback swagger of The Doors’ Jim Morrison and Glenn Danzig’s (varied punk rock, heavy metal, industrial, blues, classical) armored-car physical presence.”
Variety pans Cruise but praises the entire ensemble. “Zeta-Jones still has the singing and hoofing chops she showed in Chicago, and Mary J. Blige adds a touch of class as a strip-club den mother who takes Julianne Hough under wing when fate starts bringin’ on the heartbreak.”
From a J. Miller of LOUD Media, “Great performances by Alec Baldwin and Paul Giamatti and that’s about it.”
Sandy Schaefer reviewing the trailer is convinced “the film is more about selling the movie’s big personalities, colorful ’80s atmosphere, and new thematic spins on cherished tunes that were all the rage during the ’70s and ’80s… and offering an early sample of Cruise’s rock music singing abilities — and to be fair, he doesn’t sound half-bad.”
On opening day at the Shangri-La, the attendance was grim. This makes us even more curious to watch the play on which it was based.
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