Released last: June 2012
Why I watched it: First, it is a musical. Second, it is directed by Adam Shankman, whose body of works include “So You Think You Can Dance”, the “Step Up” dance series, “Hairspray” and “Glee” – all of which I watched and enjoyed. So yeah, how can I not enjoy a movie dance musical featuring 1980s rock?
Well, I did enjoy the music, but I did not enjoy the movie as much as I thought I would.
First, let me comment about the music. You see, I am hardly the rock fan. The songs in the movie were familiar to me only because they’ve been featured on Glee or have been sung by contestants on “American Idol”, “X-Factor” or “The Voice”. I am definitely not a fan of the rock bands credited in the movie either and normally, I don’t warm up to old music. But I suppose, truly great music is timeless for I totally loved the musical performances in spite of all the obvious reasons I shouldn’t. Now I don’t know how the fans of the original artists feel about the cover versions in the movie, but I totally loved them. I totally love the entire soundtrack.
And now, let me share my thoughts on the movie. While I enjoyed the musical portions, overall, I was a little disappointed with the screenplay. In a way, the musical numbers somewhat felt forced (kind of like Glee these days). I’ve read that there were some significant but not extensive changes to the movie’s version compared to the original theatre version so it could be possible that this is one of the factors on why the movie sort of felt lacking in overall charm.
I would later know the answer to this thought when I watch the local theatre production of Rock of Ages. I think it’s not really the changes in the film version, but more in the execution and integration of the musical numbers in the narrative scenes. Well, the play had a slight advantage in this literary aspect because it had a narrating character to easily fill in the blanks.
But anyway, I still enjoyed the movie and I guess it’s just unfortunate that I had too high expectations. It made me look forward to the play even more.
Critical Reception: 41% on Rotten Tomatoes
I’d rate it around: 74%, the music was its saving grace.
_______________
As I did in 2011, I am listing down the movies I watch for 2012, along with my comment about each viewing experience. These movie pseudo-review/commentaries are hardly scientific. There might be days that I might be more tolerant of crappy movies and so I might find myself going easy on the critique. More so, my "critiques" are hardly theoretical because I admit I have not taken any proper film critiquing classes, haha! I most usually lash out "in the moment". I try to be as objective as possible, but know that we all have our own different tastes when it comes to films.
No comments:
Post a Comment