Cast whatever aspersions you like at the teased-hair, spandex-clad rock ‘n’ roll of the ’80s: base, superficial, oversexed, bleating loudly into the night without ever having much to say apart from the fact that sex, drugs, and itself were all that was needed for a pretty great party.
Taking all that for granted, and ignoring for a moment the attraction of a little wanton hedonism for a culture anxious over economic strife, expanding militarism, and the outbreak of HIV, and there’s still one overriding factor that allowed the likes of Poison, Whitesnake, and Twisted Sister to pack stadiums and arenas across the world: Their music was just catchy as hell.
To this day, you can still cue up Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” or Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” on any jukebox in America and be reasonably assured of a spontaneous sing-along. Cue them up in a jukebox musical, as Chris D’Arienzo did in his Tony-nominated Broadway hit Rock of Ages — now adapted for the screen by director Adam Shankman — and you’ve got a dramatized mix tape with “guilty pleasure” scrawled on the label.
All the cerebral complaints you might have about the music apply equally to the film. It’s silly, shallow, corny and polished to such a glossy sheen that it’s likely to slip right back out of your brain the second the credits roll.
But just like the music, it’s far more fun than it has any right being. To borrow from Poison’s Bret Michaels, it ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ but a good time, and that song’s inclusion in the opening scenes is the movie’s statement of purpose as much as that of the characters singing it.