The movie musical has been through a dazzling evolution since the days of the talkies, from stage-bound hokum to brash on-location masterpieces to animated delights. Shoehorned in those, is the lamentable MTV genre, where a song-dense soundtrack of rock songs express the characters’ inner lives, only without the characters themselves singing. Footloose, even Top Gun, fall into the category. Occasionally, we still get the old school versions of classic musicals, like Chicago. Mamma Mia and the upcoming Les Miserables movie, as well as the TV show Glee.
But how well can you combine the ’80s brand of jukebox rock into a traditional musical format? Not well, judging by the disastrous Rock of Ages.
