Rock of Ages (2012)

I have been looking forward to Rock of Ages.  I saw the musical when it was on tour, with Constantine Maroulis, of course. I'm not ashamed to say that I loved him on American Idol and was very excited to see him on stage.  I was also looking forward to the movie because it was directed by the beautiful and wonderful Adam Shankman.  And choreographed by Mia Michaels!  How can that not be great.  Mike, however, was not super excited, he was just kind of there because he'll go see anything in the theater with me.  And there was nothing else coming out today. 

It started out a little slow for me, and it was clear pretty early on that they were throwing half the musical out the window, which is fine, but they did cut my favorite subplot.  Anyway, Tom Cruise was pretty great as Stacee Jaxx.  He really gave the character depth and made him interesting and sympathetic.  They should have just thrown the rest of the musical out the window, based the movie on it and made the whole thing about Stacee Jaxx.  Because Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta were okay, but Tom Cruise is the reason I would watch the movie again.  There was also a great scene towards the end with a bunch of 80s hair band rockers (and Debbie Gibson, of course) singing "We Built This City", which was clever.  There was also a Constantine Maroulis cameo, which was nice.  But the real magic was brought by Tom Cruise. 

Now, I make it no secret that I love Tom Cruise.  I don't care if he's a scientologist, or if he's secretly gay, or whatever it is that is going around.  He's good at acting.  He's also incredibly good looking and he keeps his body in fantastic shape.  So, I always enjoy watching him in movies.  And this was no different.  I hope he gets nominated for something.  He won't get an Oscar nod for it, it wasn't that great.  But maybe a golden globe nod in the comedy category.  I could see that.  Definitely some sort of MVP award, because without him, this movie would have been terrible.  Also, Malin Ackerman was pretty special.  She definitely pulled her weight. 

This has been an incredibly terrible post.  And I would love to write something more coherent and readable, but the pizza's here, I'm hungry, and nobody reads my blog anyway, so whatever.  If you didn't see the musical, or you hate 80s hair bands, or you can't stand Tom Cruise, don't see this movie.