Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Bad omens. They're easy to recognise, aren't they? Rats don't usually dive over the side of perfectly good ships, vultures circling in the desert sky aren't just out for a Sunday afternoon hover and films that hang around in post-production limbo for the best part of three years are not left on the shelf because that movie is a glistening work of unutterable brilliance.

So after many moons of ooh-ing and aah-ing from the studio’s, at long bleeding last they’ve decided to release the much talked about Mark Wahlberg vehicle Rock Star. Following the all-too-familiar narrative path of the quiet hometown guy who cuts it amongst the big boys and then must deal with the tribulations that fame brings, Rock Star doesn’t have a whole lot to say that hasn’t already been said many, many times before, an over-ballooned fable that wants us to romanticise the idea that any ordinary Joe who gets a bit lucky can succeed in America, while also revealing that – you guessed it - success isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. So it's disappointing that the movie, which begins well, ends up with such a boring assertion of straightness, in regards to both sexual preference (the film touches on the subject of homoerotic notions on a plethora of occasions), but also with regard to lifestyles and everyday values.

Wahlberg plays Chris Cole, a photocopier repairman whose sole interest lies in heavy metal music, so much so that he’s the lead singer for “Blood Pollution”, a tribute band for the big-time rock group “Steel Dragon”. Just when the pursuit of this infatuation is threatened by a falling out with his band, something that most probably has something to do with his almost anal obsession with his favourite head-bangers, Chris stumbles into good luck. When “Steel Dragon” 's lead singer Bobby Beers (Jason Flemyng) is pressured out of the band, they find themselves in need of a new face to front their music. Guess who’s in the right place at the right time?

Rumour is that this offering is inspired by the story of Tim "Ripper" Owens, a singer in a “Judas Priest” tribute band who ended up joining his idols as their caterwauling front man. And in many ways the ridiculousness of such a scenario is gleefully exposed by the filmmakers themselves: Rock Star begins in a spirit of cheesy '80s excess, affectionately mocking the hypocrisy of spoilt metal stars and the fans who ape their every move. And while it has enough hard rock music to satisfy most general film audiences, it’s extremely blatant that Rock Star is a consistently shallow, mostly anonymous and only sporadically entertaining examination of the rock star celebrity lifestyle.

The main Achilles heel is that director Stephen Herek has absolutely no idea what genre his film should fall into, veering from hard-hitting drama-documentary into unintentional spoofery in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap. He obviously wants to recreate a film worthy of following in the footsteps of Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous by attempting an abridged, rose-tinted, but really rather wonderful autobiopic, but instead comes closer to the cartoon-masked cynicism that plagued the recent Josie And The Pussycats.

What’s also rather unforgivable is that Rock Star is so bland that it's sometimes hard to tell what the underlying message is actually trying to say. The movie obviously wants to be a cautionary tale about the snowballing effect of nightly bouts of promiscuous sex with groupies and lots of drugs can have on an ‘ordinary person’ but fails to follow through with any of its convictions. The sex is only discussed and hinted upon (most noticeably when Chris realises that the ‘girl’ standing in his hotel bathroom is not only wearing his leather underwear but also, erm, peeing whilst stood up), and the many drug-induced nativities are never really witnessed onscreen.

Jennifer Aniston, in a largely thankless role, does as capable a job as she can as Chris’ long-term girlfriend but is immensely forgettable: she is nobody's idea of a steel-town rock-and-roll fan, no matter how short her skirts. Dominic West, as the sexuality-obsessed drummer is a walking talking cliché of exactly how shallow the rich and famous are supposed to be, and Timothy Spall just sleepwalks his way through the show. The main criticism, however, must be aimed at Wahlberg himself. As Chris/Izzy, the entire movie rests on his muscular shoulders, and he simply hasn’t got the acting credentials in which to carry it off. After his disastrous showing in Tim Burton’s Planet Of The Apes, Walhberg has proven himself to be the most consistently incompetent actor currently plying his trade in Hollywood.

If you’re looking for salvation, then Matthew Glave is eminently funny as Chris’ elder sibling Joe (“Isn't it a little bit twisted you're still living at home, stealing mom's makeup?" he taunts), and a rather amusing end credits reel is sure to garner laughs, particularly at the mocking of – ha ha ha – Wahlberg’s efforts as a rapper with “The Funky Bunch”. But, however you dress it up Rock Star is an effort and imagination-free zone, straight-to-bottom shelf popcorn pap only promoted to big-screen status by the presence of Wahlberg and Aniston. It treats its audience like idiots, and idiots are the only people who'll want to see it.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older