Film review: 'Rock of Ages' stewed in irony?

And then Tom Cruise shows up, almost redeeming the whole project. He plays the Axl Rose-ish Stacee Jaxx, a megastar who, through his sleazeball manager (Paul Giamatti), has agreed to do a free one-night stand to save the club. All the other characters are either cartoons (Brand, Baldwin, Zeta-Jones) or clichés (the two young lovers). Stacee starts out cartoonish, but then, some way or another, Cruise brings a little more depth and texture to the character than the film deserves.

Cruise also does his own singing — more than adequately. At first I doubted the filmmakers' claim that no voice doubles were used, until I heard Giamatti. Yep: Definitely no voice double there. The rest of the non-singers on hand sound pretty good, until Mary J. Blige shows up (as the manager of a nearby strip joint) to remind us of what a professional sounds like.

The script isn't particularly funny. Most of the humor comes from Baldwin, Brand and Cruise, but — as in a Marx Brothers film — everything grinds to a halt when the young lovers are center stage, which unfortunately is most of the time.

In short, “Rock of Ages” is your basic stew of “Footloose,” “Moulin Rouge,” “Music and Lyrics,” every “Let's put on a show!” musical from the last 80 years and “Showgirls,” updated for yet another generation. As in the last of these, trying to determine how the movie sees itself is tricky. Are all of the clichés and recyclings earnest? Or are some ironic? Or satirical? Some indeterminate combination? Maybe it's all ironic. Your guess is as good as mine.

ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).