The only problem is that the plot meanders when nobody is singing. And that's OK, because the actors are having a lot of fun, and the production values of the musical numbers are slick and high-spirited. There isn't an original idea in the screenplay by Justin Theroux and Chris D'Arienzo, based on an Off-Broadway hit. She leads a group of protesters across the street from the Bourbon Room, while Dennis and Lonny look grimly out the window. In this case, the politician is Mayor Whitman ( Bryan Cranston), who gets all of his instructions from his domineering wife, Patricia ( Catherine Zeta-Jones). Frankie, Annette and the gang were always having a great time down at the beach when some stuffy local politician decided to run them out of town as a campaign tactic. If you are of a certain age, you may remember them. Adam Shankman's 'Rock of Ages' not only has a high-profile cast, but they never seem to be slumming they play their roles with great intensity and earnestness, which is really the only way to do satire.ДЄ subplot is recycled directly out of old 'Beach Party' musicals. If you're tracking those names, you're perhaps impressed. The person on the other end of the line is usually a venal music manager named Paul Gill ( Paul Giamatti), who claims he will save the club by supplying his legendary client Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) for a one-night farewell concert. His only confidante is a weathered rocker named Lonny (Russell Brand), whose primary function is to lean over him during phone calls and frantically tell him what to say. Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin), its owner, is desperate because he owes back taxes and will have to close the doors at any moment. They're sweet and likable, but for me, the better story involves the fate of the club, the Bourbon Room. Has ever a romance in a musical been otherwise? Of course their mistake is repaired and (spoiler!) they're back together at the end. Of course they break up because of a tragic misunderstanding. Of course they have heartfelt conversations while standing behind the 'Hollywood' sign. The whole affair feels riven and unsure, with Shankman-and many of his actors-unable to work out whether they should be spoofing the movieвЂ™s backlist of nineteen-eighties hits or digging around in the musical mayhem for true emotional meat.Of course they also fall in love.

Blige, who has nothing to prove in the lung department, and to Catherine Zeta-Jones, whose role (as a sniffing moralist who wants to shut down the club) is woefully thin but who nails her musical numbers with the same briskness that brought her an Oscar for вЂњChicago.вЂќ Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta play a couple of dreamy young sweethearts, possibly time travellers from the late nineteen-fifties, who aim for the love and success that the movie duly provides.

Also present, and equally obliged to sing their guts out, are Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, and Malin Akerman, but the honors go to Mary J. At the core is Tom Cruise he plays a rock god on the slide named Stacee Jaxx, all tongue and tattoo, although he is, if anything, overexposed by the film-if we had waited longer for his arrival, or glimpsed him only in bursts of sweaty activity, we might have wanted more. Adam ShankmanвЂ™s new movie is adapted from the stage musical of the same name, set largely in a club called the Bourbon Room, on the Sunset Strip, and crowded with stars, each vying to be more full-throated, unembarrassable, and game for a good laugh than the others.

Rock of ages movie c