Cruise too healthy to rock

Tom Cruise is not the problem. It seems like the actor is getting the blame for the picture Rock of Ages not doing well at the box-office, when this should not be the case. Well, he does look too healthy and well-muscled for a glam rocker from the ’80s. Those guys always look emaciated. But the truth is, Cruise acquits himself well in the movie.

He can really sing Pour Some Sugar On Me and he is believable as a dissipated rock star. But because he is the biggest star in the cast, it is his name in the headlines about Rock of Ages being a flop. This is so unfair. The movie is an ensemble piece and everybody — the cast, the director and writers, etc. — should share the credit. 

Changes are inevitable when translating from one medium to another. I believe that the main problem with Rock of Ages the movie was in the decision to turn the small Tony-nominated jukebox play into a large musical. That is just like putting an intimate club show in the Araneta. The main set, the Bourbon Room, is an old rock club in its last gasps. So to see the musical numbers play out in large extravagant sets took away this atmosphere. As a result, the jokes — and Rock of Ages has plenty — suffered and the satire got lost in the busy editing.

Then because it is a rock musical, there had to be a big ending where the leads perform Don’t Stop Believin’, a song that lost its rock edge because of Glee. Also just because he had Cruise, director Adam Shankman could not leave the decadent Stacee Jaxx in exile in Uruguay. He had to keep him in the US to sing with the leads in the finale.

Which brings us to the leads, these are Diego Monetta as the aspiring rocker Drew and Julianne Hough as the wannabe starlet Sherrie. They are good-looking kids, who might have done well in the original Rock of Ages on stage. Not in the movie though, which showed them off as lacking in star power. Not all of Monetta’s Latin idol qualities and Hough’s Dancing With The Stars fame were enough for them to shine.

Can you imagine what this would have been like had young stars of the stature of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez played the lovers? That is wishful thinking but having big teen idols in the cast might have pulled kids into the theaters and not limited the audience to the 30 and above bracket. To be fair though, maybe Diego and Julianne simply got lost in the thick of the senior star power that Rock of Ages has in abundance.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Mary J. Blige and Cruise sing and hoof it up in the film. They also all turn in earnest performances and were obviously enjoying the chance to make rock era parodies of themselves. They make excellent reasons on why people should watch Rock of Ages. That hilarious scene between Alec as Dupree and Russell as Lonny with REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling is already worth the admission price. 

Come to think of it with actors like these in the cast, I have a feeling that it would have been much better had Shankman removed the love story from the plot. That will leave us with the struggle by rockers of keeping the Bourbon Room open amidst dwindling clientele and tight-assed protesters. Then you will have an interesting movie about the dying days of glam rock and of a lost era on Sunset Strip back in the ’80s.

Nyoy Volante as Drew and Vina Morales as Sherrie fare better in the Atlantis production of Rock of Ages which is now playing at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium at the RCBC Plaza in Makati City. And thankfully, they have enough luster to shine on the same level as the other members of the cast who turn in outstanding performances.

 It is an overflow of talent with MiG Ayesa as Stacee Jaxx, Jett Pangan as Lonny, Jamie Wilson as Dupree and Jinky Llamanzares as Justice Charlier, Calvin Millado and Bibo Reyes as the father-and-son villains Franz and Hertz, and Aiza Seguerra as rock militant Regina.

It was sad because they get a lot of laughs in the show but also understandable that Franz and Hertz were written off in the picture. Their roles could be seen as a slur against Germans. But because of this, and sadder still, the film also lost Regina, who is a riot. As those who have seen the musical surely know by now, walang panama si Catherine Zeta-Jones kay Aiza Seguerra.