POUR Some Sugah!

Rock of Ages is fun!! The music is a trip back in time, loud, pulsing, head-banging rhythms that totally capture an age fondly remembered. It's a musical, so those who do not like the characters breaking into song/dance at the drop of a musical cue will be disappointed, but the end product is a great big smile of happy that is still on my face.

Tom Cruise? Well, he over-does it as the stoned-out rocker, regardless of his role inspiration -- perhaps Axl Rose. Cruise tries for stoned-out distance, but it comes out as a vacancy that creates a void between believable and not so much. He totally rocks out his performance numbers, with, of course, Sugar his crowning glory. It's nice to know that H'wood gives older men so many chances to reinvent their careers at age 50, but prefers to stereotype its women into forever (young) fortyhood. And, just a personal opinion, but I don't buy Tom Cruise as a sex machine: something off there akin to the nude scenes he did with his then-wife Kidman in that artsy film back when.

The cute couple, Julianna Hough and Diablo Beneta, consistently out-perform every other actor on the set, including Cruise. They are not just letter perfect in their roles, but knock them out of the park by being true to their characters. I kept flashing to John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's performance in Grease, in the acting, the singing, the character capture, and the impact at the end of the film. Another performer who shines is Mary J. Blige, who, with the big hair, the big heart, and the big voice, totally sells herself as the voice of reason who tells Sherri (Hough) to go home, to get out before she can't get out.

Malin Ackerman and Paul Giamatti are stuck with stereotypes to play, but they are great in their roles. Malin perfects the seemingly dumb, but well-educated, totally hot woman behind the bleached blonde hair and the librarian glasses, and then she turns up the heat in her (sex) scene with Cruise on the pool table and steals it. Giamatti portrays the money-driven agent with all the aplomb of a used car salesman who takes a clunker and turns it into a dream. He plays with Cruise perfectly, but also portrays another agent side with Beneta, when Giamatti realizes that Jaxx is on his last legs, but this new kid has long legs that will recover the revenue stream nicely, the bird-in-the-hand philosophy switcheroo thingy.

On the other hand, really? Whichever Baldwin and the Brit Twit? These two guys cannot act: they pretend to be something they aren't and do it badly. Alec Baldwin continually stares at something off-camera, perhaps his lines on a cue card, and it is totally distracting. Trying too hard to be something memorable, Russell Brand makes a complete ass of himself, most especially in what could be the most memorable scene of the movie, the realization of his deep affection for Baldwin's character. Brand acts out because he has no idea who he is, so he cannot relate to the character he's supposed to become in the film. What a waste of two good roles that could have soared with proper casting.

And, sorry to say, but Catherine Zeta-Jones falls flat, too. As hot and charismatic as she was in Chicago, she is far too cold, far too aloof, in her role as the Mayor's crusading sex reformer wife. Yeah, she is supposed to be a "reformed" rocker who was burned by Stacee Jaxx long, long ago, but she presents as a block of ice, rather than simply icily dedicated to her current cause. I didn't buy her in the role at all.

One of the best musical numbers is the "street fight" between Zeta-Jones' crusaders and Brand's rocker mentality. It is a well-staged, well-performed mash-up, and an instant hit in the middle of the movie, the scene that wakes the movie back up to performance level and re-engages the audience in the story.

Overall, a great experience and a whole lot of fun if you don't take the basic premise or the final cut too seriously. And I'm still singing, "Pour some sugar on me!" Loudly.