Rock of Ages, a new star-clogged pop-musical diversion, is a cinematic event. It's not every day, after all, that you get to see two great American traditions—guitar/bass/drums rock music and Tin Pan Alley musical theater—so thoroughly, mutually degraded.
This mess originated as a stage production, first performed in Los Angeles in 2006, from which it spread to Broadway, the West End, and the known universe beyond. Like Mamma Mia! or Jersey Boys, it belongs to the species that has been dubbed the "jukebox musical," in which a group of licensed pop songs are strung together to create a ready-made musical score. This practice of steering a story between preexistent tunes effectively guarantees that the songs cannot grow from the plot organically, while challenging the author of the book to invent the pretext of a narrative setting in which to imbed the numbers.
See www.villagevoice.com for full review
