WHAT? People don’t want to see Tom Cruise attempting to regain his youth by strutting around in a hat and a fluffy fur coat as he butchers some of the best songs that Aunt Tootie used to tease her weave to? This is shocking. Just shocking.
As of this moment, ‘Rock of Ages’ is getting a 42% approval from critics and just over half the audience give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. The true reception is in the box office recipients. The musical studded with star power only hobbled in at $15.1 million. To put it in perspective, the film’s biggest competition at the box office were in their second weeks. ‘Madagascar 3’ did over twice that and ‘Prometheus’ did $20 million. ‘That’s My Boy’ did even worse as it placed 5th in the box office in the film’s opening weekend and crawled to the finish on Sunday with $13 million.
As far as reviews go, well, we will just let them speak for themselves.
New York Post – “This plodding mess may help put to rest Hollywood’s inexplicable two-decade love affair with the awful ’80s, a pop- culture decade that’s overdue for a break.”
USA Today – “Don’t stop believing. Just avoid clichéd musicals that try to capture the anarchic spirit of rock with trite commercial re-treads.”
Wall Street Journal – “What’s not fine is the dead zone occupied by the monster of the piece, Tom Cruise’s veteran rocker, Stacee Jaxx.”
Time – “So willfully bad that not even Cruise’s valiant CPR can help.”
All the positive reviews have one praise in common…at least the actors looked like they were having fun.
NY Daily News – “It’s worth the novelty, but you may have a hard time looking at everyone involved the same way again.”
Reel News: “There’s a variable quality to the vocals, but the production design and choreography are solid, leading to a cheesy enjoyability.”
Did you see it? Thoughts?
[...] Rock of Ages flops at the box office Hollywood Dame [...]