REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man

What makes a reboot different to a remake? How many things have to change in the story before filmmakers feel comfortable in trying to flog the film as something 'new'? And finally, what is our fascination with being told the exact same story again and again?

I could list off a whole load of remakes, but that would be a waste of time. I've never really looked forward to any remake, except when The Amazing Spider-Man was announced. It was promised to be more in line with the comics and tell the 'untold story' of Spider-Man. That was it. I was hooked. However, the story follows more of the same structure as the 2002 film directed by Sam Raimi, Spider-Man than the filmmakers really let on.

The Amazing Spider-Man follows loveable geek, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) as he struggles to come to terms with high school, bullies, the love of his life, Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) and trying to find out why his parents left him with his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) when he was a young boy. When he lets a thief pass him by in the street that ultimately leads to the death of his beloved Uncle Ben, Parker vows to seek vengeance on the thieves out on the street and more importantly, the one who killed his uncle. At the same time, Parker finds a briefcase containing files which provide clues to his Father's secret work when he was younger. As Parker tries to find out more of his Father's shady path, it puts him onto a collision course with Oscorp and Doctor Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), the man whom his Father used to work with, which challenges his fate to become the hero he is destined to be.

Now, I'll admit straight away that I am quite a fan of Spider-Man. I find him to be more charismatic than Batman, more intriguing than Superman and more sympathetic than Iron Man. However, to say that The Amazing Spider-Man tells the 'untold story' of Spider-Man is a bit of a lie. I just can't help but feel that this film is a bit of an anti-climax to the superhero that I like the most. Call me biased, call me a fan-boy, but I didn't learn anything new in The Amazing Spider-Man than I didn't already know from Raimi's Spider-Man.

Firstly, the plot is pretty damn similar. Parker is left with his Aunt and Uncle (standard) and is bullied by Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka) in high school. The bullying in this film still feels really 90s cliche, like something we would have seen in Clueless or Not Another Teen Movie(!) Moving on... Parker is still the cause of his Uncle's death (pivotal to the plot really), but he's responsible in the exact same way - letting a thief bypass him when he could have stopped him. The villain is still green (OK, that one is very tenuous!) and he still pines after the girl in high-school and then gets her when he gets the swag of being Spider-Man on his side (original comic-book girlfriend, Gwen Stacey in this case, not Mary-Jane Watson.)

To be a true 'untold story', I would have liked to have seen more background to Spider-Man. Think more like Nolan's Batman Begins, where we truly get to know the heartbreak behind Parker's parents disappearing, because The Amazing Spider-Man seems to gloss over key points. Some of these being, Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan), who is never truly explained as to why he is working so closely with Oscorp, Parker's Father or Doctor Connors. In fact, in the third act he just disappears. The thief that kills Uncle Ben, because Parker swears vengeance against him, spends the first hour of the film hunting him down and then just forgets about him. Connors past with Parker's Father is never truly explored and his sudden turn to 'good' at the end seemed a little cheap and came out of nowhere. Finally, The Lizard/Connor's plans to turn the citizens of New York City into lizards felt a bit half-baked. He gasses some armed policemen into lizards and never uses them - in fact they are never seen again until the end of the film when they are turning back to humans. Surely he would have used them as his foot soldiers?!

However, it's not all bad. Director Marc Webb does brilliantly with what he has been given and actually ends up making a beautiful looking film. The night scenes and much darker and grittier than the 2002 film, the Spider-Man swinging scenes are thrilling and the battles are quite exciting. It is a shame that the music in the film (courtesy of James Horner) is quite jarring and doesn't really compliment the visuals that Webb puts on the screen. A prime example would be when The Lizard is stalking the labs of Oscorp and Gwen Stacey is hiding in a cupboard - its like Horner put in some cheap 80s horror film music.

Also, the casting of the film was pretty inspired. To step up and fill the shoes (or boots) of Tobey Maguire was a big ask, because he certainly made the role his own, but Andrew Garfield did a brilliant act of balancing the awkwardness of Parker and the cockiness of Spider-Man. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey also played a much more likeable and interesting character than Kirsten Dunst's Mary-Jane. Finally, Rhys Ifans also did his best with the limited role of Doctor Curt Connors, but I would have loved to see more a struggle with the loss of his arm - something similar to the struggle we saw with Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) loosing his wife in Spider-Man 2.

Finally, while I don't think the film went into as much detail of Parker's life than I would have liked, an obvious tell-tale sign would have been the list of writers that are credited with the film... A mixing pot of James Vanderbilt (Screenplay and Story), Alvin Sargent (Screenplay) and Steve Kloves (Screenplay) certainly wouldn't have helped the film. In fact, I think it probably contributed to the clashing elements of the film. The first half of the film does brilliantly in setting up Parker as a superhero with all the responsibilities that come with it, and the death of Uncle Ben was actually quite upsetting and full of drama. However, as soon as The Lizard was thrown into the mix, the film became a paint-by-the-numbers superhero film that offered nothing new and killed off all the intriguing subplots (vengeance against the thief, Parker's father's history, the evil Ratha and Connors' connection with Parker's Father.)

So, as a whole The Amazing Spider-Man is a much better looking film than Raimi's Spider-Man, but doesn't really offer enough of anything new to make it truly remarkable and worthy of rebooting the franchise. If only Spider-Man could of had Christopher Nolan behind the writing of the film to truly make it an origins story.

*** / *****

REVIEW: The Five-Year Engagement

I've said it before, but I'll say it again... I don't really like it when posters try to lure us in with the promise of it being made by the Producers of other films, or the Director of other films or even the tea-lady of other films. It just feels kind of like a cheap trick.

The Five-Year Engagement does do this on it's poster though. "From the Producer of Bridesmaids", is what it so proudly says. Again, it's misleading, because The Five-Year Engagement is much funnier than Bridesmaids.

The film follows Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt) and Tom Solomon (Jason Siegal) and straight away, Tom proposes to Violet. All seems to be going well, they are in love, Tom has a great job as second Chef at a thriving restaurant and Violet is waiting on being accepting into the University of Michigan. However, as they try to set the date for their wedding, things just keep getting in the way, like Violet's studies and her professor, Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans), Tom's new friendship with the weird Michigan locals, Bill (Chris Parnell) and Tarquin (Brian Posehn). As they slowly drift apart, it begs the question as to whether they will actually make it down the aisle or call off the engagement altogether.

Firstly, I have to congratulate the filmmakers and the writer for making a romantic comedy film that is equally enjoyable for males and females alike. While I can safely say, I wasn't looking forward to seeing this film, the silly comedy moments certainly made up for the fact that I was sitting in the cinema and watching a rom-com! Siegal and Blunt were perfectly cast in their roles and made the moments just seem really natural and fluid.

For a comedy film, there was rarely a moment that felt forced or pushed just for a laugh. The annoying friend, Alex (Chris Pratt) and Violet's sister, Susie (Alison Brie) were the perfect couple to offset the challenges that Tom and Violet were facing - Alex and Brie never really wanted to be together in the first place but got married and had children straight away... The systematic deaths of the grandparents was a brilliant way to show the passing of time, up the tension for the couple to hurry up and get married, but also provide a nice nod to Four Weddings and a Funeral and some extra laughs as well.

However, one gripe that I did have was that for a fluffy romantic comedy, the film did seem to be one of two halves. It sets itself up as a light-hearted romance film, but then takes a turn into The Break Up territory, where it seems to be the anti rom-com with a much darker and unhappier ending. While this would have been a good twist on the narrative, there seems to be a tacked one fifteen minute epilogue, where the film swerves back into the happy Hollywood ending. While it would have been a bit of a downer ending, it would have made the film stick out from the crowd. However the ending that the film does have seems like a massive rewrite, because it's sickly-sweet and completely inconceivable that anyone could really pull it off.

Another weird thing that the film does is that it tries to pull off scenes set in England that are obviously filmed in America. All of the grandparents live in the UK (for some reason), but when Violet systematically visits the UK for their funerals, it is such a slice of Americana that it's just too hard to swallow for the audience (it's bright an sunny and the Church is a wooden shack in the middle of flat prairie land... but the filmmakers use a London black cab, so all is well in the world!)

Despite those slight flaws, The Five-Year Engagement is actually a rather good comedy film that can also draw in the male crowd. It's just a shame that the film has been doing so badly in America and across the rest of the world, because as far as wedding-based comedies go, The Five-Year Engagement definitely beats Bridesmaids.

***½ / *****

REVIEW: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

How can you hook in an audience nowadays? The film market has become so saturated with new releases that it's difficult to tell some films apart. I mean there is only so many ways that you can tell the same story, right?

Well, one way it seems to make your film stick out is to give it a ridiculous title. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I mean, last time I checked, Lincoln wasn't a vampire hunter.

The film follows Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker)... surprise, surprise... through his early life right up until he becomes President of the United States of America. When he was younger, he watched his Mother (Robin McLeavy) killed by vampire, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas). After a failed attempt to take revenge, Lincoln is trained by Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper) - who has a dark secret of his own - to kill vampires, but only the vampires that Sturgess tells him to. Along the way, Lincoln meets the love of his life, Mary Todd Lincoln (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). When he later becomes President, Lincoln soon realises that vampires have joined forces with the Confederates in the South, so he decides to mount his own campaign to not only abolish slavery, but also to kill all vampires.

As you can see, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter covers a lot of ground in Lincoln's life. It literally takes him from his childhood, right up until the moments before he dies (his wife's last words being, "Hurry up or we'll be late for the theatre!")

Because of this, certain parts of the film feel very rushed. When his Mother is killed near the beginning, Lincoln is given no time to mourn his Mother's death. Straight away, he seeks revenge and attempts to kill Barts. When he meets Mary Todd, their relationship seems really rushed as they are given no time to fall in love. There is a quite nice scene where she demands to know what Lincoln does and he tells her the exact truth about hunting vampires, before she laughs and tells him to not be so silly. However, there doesn't seem to be enough of these moments. Also, when revenge is exacted upon Barts (as it so inevitably happens - I would label this a spoiler, but it's pretty obvious that it will happen), Lincoln seems to kill him and then move on straight away.

However, while the film can feel a little rushed at time, the action also runs along at break-neck speed. The direction from Timur Bekmambetov (previous films including Wanted and Night Watch) is pretty much spot on to create the exciting, yet tongue-in-cheek atmosphere that the film so desperately needed. It could have easily gone down the serious horror route, but I think this would have been damaging to the credibility of the film being an action adventure. While some scenes can seems bit repetitive from Timur's previous efforts (the train scene in this film seemed painfully close to the train crash scene from Wanted), you can't blame him for sticking to what he does best.

If anything, I would have liked the film to be a little bit more funny, maybe in the vein of something like Sherlock Holmes. I'm sure people would claim that this would be a wrong idea and that the vampire genre has completely "jumped the shark" with this film, but I couldn't help but feel how much of a good time I was having while watching this. Sometimes, you just need a silly film to switch off to, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is definitely a film that you need to switch off to.

The set design and costumes are something that I cannot fault, and coupled with the gorgeous cinematography, this film certainly looks impressive. While the 3D doesn't really add anything to the film, it's rarely used as a gimmick - the only shot I can think of is when someone cracks their whip right in your face... Otherwise, you wouldn't miss the 3D at all in this film. The furthest thing that "sticks out" is the dust in the air in some of the scenes.

So, if you like your vampire films silly with lots of action scenes that keep you on the edge of your seat, then you can't really go wrong with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. However, if you are a vampire aficionado, then this one should be missed. But, if you are a serious vampire fan and you aren't put off by a title such as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, then I have no pity for you!

***½ / *****

REVIEW: Friends With Kids

Following on from the latest "Friends With..." title comes Friends With Bene... Kids. Another notch on the American comedy market, featuring many familiar faces from Bridesmaids.

While the film is touted as the next big thing or, more precisely, "The funniest film of its kind since Bridesmaids" (as says the poster), the film itself is more of an affectionate look at friends falling in love after having a child together... Rather than a belly-laugh comedy that the poster would suggest.

The film opens with two best friends, Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), talking on the phone at 4am after last nights conquests lie next to them in their beds. Straight away, we realise that they are long standing buddies without any funny business going on between them (despite everyone around them wanting there to be something.) There is also Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O'Dowd), the couple who get pregnant first out of all their friends and after having their children, they like to argue... a lot. But, they still love each other, despite their flaws. And finally, there is Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm), the newly wed couple, who like to sleep with each other a lot and also end up getting pregnant before, well, falling out again.

It's all very set-up and from the moment the film starts, it's all kind of obvious how the film is going to go. While this isn't a completely bad thing, it does mean that you have to invest time for your audience to completely care about these characters. The audience knows who is going to get their heart broken and who is going to want a divorce, but the journey that they take to that moment is where you want to completely pull on your audience's heart strings and put them through the emotional wringer. Unfortunately, Friends With Kids fails to do this.

One of my biggest problems was, why was it Julie that had to have unrequited love for Jason? Why couldn't the film have switched it around and have the man be the one pining for the woman who doesn't love him back? I'm not a feminist, but I think it would have been different and more emotional to have it that way, rather than have the stereotypical helpless, emotional female character. Also, what happened to Kristen Wiig in this film?! She was reduced to looking pissed off in the corner of every scene. She hardly had any input or any reasoning as to why she was so annoyed with her husband. Sure, he was a bit of an idiot and didn't help her with their child, but he didn't seem to do much more to warrant such hatred from her.

Also, the film didn't really get it's casting right. Julie (Westfeldt) seemed a bit weak to be a main protagonist. If she is going to get her heartbroken, we want to see her change from being helpless to being a strong, independent woman (I heard you, Destiny's Child!) However, she just remains helpless throughout.

Are we supposed to buy it that Jason (West) is a womanising lothario, who can date and bed different women like Mary Jane (Megan Fox) with ease every single week? Sure, films are meant to represent a fantasy, as such, and what man wouldn't want to bed a different Megan Fox each week? But Adam West just didn't really seem to fulfil his role very well.

However, while the film isn't laugh-out-loud funny like The Hangover or Bridesmaids (like the poster suggests it is), the film is a sweet look at how friends can sometimes fall in love. Some might say it's a bit of a predictable and sickly finish to the film, but I think that it filled it's role as romantic mush very well.

So, if you like your films light on the drama but a bit heavier on the "feel-good factor", then Friends With Kids is definitely something to give a go. However, it doesn't have an emotional punch to it to make it exactly memorable.

** / *****

DVD REVIEW: The Innkeepers

Some Direct-to-DVD releases are best to be forgotten. The low-budget nastiness of the production values and the painful attempts at acting by the unknowns are the common reasons for this.

However, just occasionally, there is a direct-to-DVD release that leaves you wondering, why couldn't I see this in cinemas on the big screen? The Innkeepers left me thinking exactly that.

This is the third big release from Director/Writer, Ti West, behind the brilliant slow-burner, The House of the Devil and the shlocky, but fun Cabin Fever 2.


This time around, The Innkeepers follows two minimum wage hotel slackers, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) who are working the last weekend at the Yankee Pedlar Inn before it closes for good. As the last few guests check in for the weekend, including the old actress, Leanne Reese-Jones (Kelly McGillis), an angry Mother (Alison Bartlett) and her young son (Jake Ryan) and a mysterious old man (George Riddle), the two slackers begin to hear strange things going on in the haunted hotel and decide to investigate themselves. Is the old tale of Madeline O'Malley (Brenda Cooney) really true?!

To get this review started, I have to say that if you are a fan of West's previous film, The House of the Devil, then you should love this one too. The two films follow the same basic formula - the protagonists spend the majority of the first and second act of the film exploring the creepy/haunted environment before the big pay-off at the end in the third act. The only main differences this time round being that The Innkeepers drops the 1970s style filming gimmick of The House of the Devil and also manages to pack in a few more scares/creepy moments.

I can understand what the majority of people's problem with this film will be... "Nothing happens!!" But the beauty of The Innkeepers lies within West's filming style and the time dedicated for us getting to know the two characters.

Firstly, the film is packed with beautiful long tracking shots down the hallways and creepy basements of the Yankee Pedlar Inn, largely reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's style for The Shining. Also, I have to praise the fact that West is never afraid to ratchet up the tension and focus on the build-up to the scare, rather than the fright of the scare itself. I liked the way that the film first started with one of the characters watching on of those internet screamer videos (you know the ones, where you stare long and hard at an empty room, before a gross face jumps up at the screen and it screams with the volume cranked up to maximum.) It's almost like West was saying, "This is what you are used to, but we're not going there!"

Secondly, the two main characters is where The Innkeepers really shines. We get to know the pair inside out - we understand Claire's scepticism around the hauntings of the Inn, we see Luke's commitment to getting his website up and running (about the haunted Inn) and finally, we see the little games they've devised that really show how long they've worked together (running up and trying to hit the help bell on the desk before the other can stop them.) It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's what a lot of good horror films are missing recently - it seems that they are so preoccupied with getting to the scares (and by scares, I mean jump scares rather than actual tension) that they can't stop and think about their characters for one moment.

Now, unfortunately The Innkeepers is not perfect, but it's only a minor gripe, and that is the development of the ghosts at the Inn and some of the secondary characters.

The legend of Madeline O'Malley - the bride, who was stood up on her wedding day, who then killed herself in the honeymoon suite at the Inn - seemed to be a bit underdeveloped. We are never truly told why she is still haunting the hallways of the Inn or what she really wants. The creepy old man who checks in late and demands a room on the third floor, seemed to be built up without any real pay-off as to who he was or why he acts the way he does (I don't want to give too much away here!) Or the Mother and her young son didn't really add much to the story at all, they were just there.

I just think that if the film spent half as much time developing the ghosts and the stories behind the Inn than it did to the two main characters, then it would have been perfect (and I don't say that to many films!)

So, if you like your horror films subtle, slow-burning, filled with tension and brilliantly developed characters, then The Innkeepers is definitely for you. However, if you are into being shocked every 10 seconds by a horror film, then go and stick on The Grudge or something else instead.

**** / *****

REVIEW: Chernobyl Diaries

Real events always seem to add an extra edge to a film. When the words, "Based on a True Story" are etched onto the screen, it just adds an extra sense of excitement - this could really have happened!

It appears now that films don't have to be based on true events to be exciting. Simply placing them in a "true" location is good enough (if not extremely offensive, as what seems to be the buzz on the internet at the moment about Chernobyl Diaries...)

The film centres around six tourists; the couple, Chris (Jesse McCartney) who was going to propose to his girlfriend, Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), mutual friend Amanda (Devin Kelley), Chris' brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) and backpacking couple, Michael (Nathan Phillips) and Zoe (Ingrid Bolso Berdal). They are led by tour guide, Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko) around the abandoned city of Pripyat, the town overlooked by the doomed Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. As they find out that their van has been tampered with, leaving them stranded, they soon realise that they are not alone...

To be honest, it's pretty standard horror fare right from the word go. As soon as the first montage of the couple's travelling trip comes up on screen, faint memories of the Hostel films will pass through your mind and the typical bland stereotypes of the characters also fits pretty well into the horror film cliches. And once the group's van gets tampered with, echoes on Texas Chainsaw Massacre will probably then whistle through your mind.

To say Chernobyl Diaries is uninspired would be an understatement. There is nothing new in this film whatsoever that makes it a remotely interesting horror film. What's more? It's extremely repetitive. To try and count the amount of times that the group follow a trail of blood when one of them goes missing or the amount of times that Paul shouts out his brother's name in vain when they are looking for him is almost impossible. Also, some of the decisions the characters make will certainly make your eyes roll. I know horror films are known for having stupid characters, but this film makes not attempt at trying to show us any reason for the character's rash decisions - no, they just decide to split up and go into a dark building because... that's what they decide to do.

Another thing that the film fails to do is build any real tension, which is a big turn-off for a horror film. The group have a geiger counter to warn them of any extremely high nuclear levels, yet when the counter goes off, they just ignore it and carry on the exact way they were going anyway. As the audience, we are not told what level the geiger counter has to get to before the group will be in danger, so we just hear the geiger counter go off and then see the characters ignore it. It's just a pointless part to the film.

Another way that the film lacked tension is that despite the group being picked off one-by-one, there never seemed to be any urgency about getting the hell out of there!! Or, what's more, they never attempt to try and hide from whatever is chasing them - they just stand out in the open, continually shout their friends names to try and find them and flash their torches every way they want to. The characters don't really seem scared by what's chasing them, so why should we?!

And finally, what's with trying to turn animals into villains?! Granted, the big 'bear scene' is a pretty good scare/surprise. I won't say anymore about that though... But, angry and aggressive wild dogs? Mutated, flesh-eating fish?! It was just a weak attempt at trying to add an extra dimension of tension in the film that didn't really work.

However, one way that the film does succeed is it's filming style. Imitating styles of recent films such as Silent House and touching on the style of the hand-held, first person style filming (ala. Paranormal Activity and The Last Exorcism), the film does have a heightened sense of us, as the audience, being there with them. While Silent House did it better, because the lack of editing cuts was a really immersive experience, Chernobyl Diaries does suffer sometimes with some too slick editing. A best example I could use to try and describe this would be when Amanda finds the abandoned school bus - instead of having a lingering camera shot outside before having it follow her in (so we don't see what's inside the bus straight away), the film instead decides to cut to a shot inside the bus, so we see what's inside and all tension is lost...

So, if you like your stereotypical horrors with cardboard cut-out characters doing stupid things, then Chernobyl Diaries will not disappoint. If you like your horror with a bit more of an edge to it, then I'd give this one a miss.

** / *****

REVIEW: Rock of Ages

The musical.
Start with some cheese. Then add some singing. Then show how the characters are in love. Add some more singing. Include a moral message behind the songs. Finish off with some more singing.

Like every other genre, it's easy to get it 'right', but even with all these ingredients being present in Rock of Ages, the film still feels a little bit half baked.

Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is just a small town girl... who has decided to take the midnight train to... LA. She wants to make it big as a singer, but as soon as she makes it to the big city where the streets are paved with gold, she is mugged and falls helplessly into the arms of barman/band member, Drew Boley (Diego Boneta). She is given a job straight away at the struggling Bourbon club, where manager Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) and his assistant Lonny (Russell Brand) are organising the last ever gig with Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) and his band, Arsenal. However, Mayor Mike Whitmore (Bryan Cranston) and his wife, Patricia Whitmore (Catherine Zeta-Jones) are trying to clean up the streets of LA and the first place they are looking to close down is the Bourbon club.

It's a big plot, that contains a lot of characters. I'm sure it works on the stage (I'm trying to write this review having only seen the film, not the stage musical), as I'm sure the stage musical has a lot more time to dedicate to each characters, but a compact film (this one being around 2 hours long) cannot really do each character justice.

The first time you realise this is when the main protagonists, Sherrie and Drew first meet and within 10 minutes they are on their first date at the Hollywood sign (awwww!!) and are singing a song showing how much in love they are. Then, within half an hour they are falling out and breaking up. It's breakneck speed stuff!

However, where the film really suffers is with some of it's supporting characters. Coming out particularly badly are the Mayor, his Secretary (Celina Beach) who he is supposed to be having an affair with and the Rolling Stones reporter, Constance Sack (Malin Akerman) who interviews Stacee Jaxx and immediately becomes his lover/number 1 groupie. They are just given no time to flourish, develop as characters or let us know at least a little bit about them. The worst is the Mayor and his Secretary - he is cheating on his wife all the way through the film, we even feel a little bit sorry for the bitchy wife, Patricia, yet he and his Secretary never get their comeuppance. They aren't even found out to be cheating...

Having said that, the film does make some genius casting choices. The two leads played by Hough and Boneta are passable, Hough coming out on top of both of them. However, Cruise as Stacee Jaxx was brilliant in every scene that he was in. He treads the line very carefully between being the complete washed up rocker and likeable rogue very well and his affection for his new lover after the Rolling Stones interview makes him that even more likeable. Zeta-Jones as the feminist Conservative protestor is also the shining light in every scene that she is in. Sometimes she flexes her jazz hands a bit too much, but she never becomes irritating (which is a good thing, because it's her cheating husband who is the real Antagonist here...)

Having previously directed the last big musical to come from Hollywood, Hairspray, Director Adam Shankman handles the material he is given competently. I would like to see his future films focus more on character relationships and for him to try and get more of a raw emotion from his actors, but as fluffy romantic musicals that he has directed so far go, it's fair enough.

So, if you like musicals to be light on the drama but heavy on the cheese, Rock of Ages will be the film for you. It's the perfect waste of two hours on a rainy afternoon to try and brighten your day, just that little bit.

**½ / *****