Funny and entertaining

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2012)

This is a movie that no viewer should take seriously, and simply enjoy for its funny, cliché'd, bubblegum take on the 1980s metal/hair band thing.
Mark Wahlberg's acting is a bit wooden, but it works in this film because he's playing a young man who is uncomfortable in his own skin (very much the same kind of performance he delivers in Boogey Nights). Aniston is miscast. She's too polished for the girlfriend/manager role, but she's tolerable. Good supporting performances by Timothy Spall, Dominic West, Dagmara Dominczyk, Jason Flemyng, Tim Olyphant and Matthew Glave. The supporting performances are a strength of the movie, along with the music, which is very well done. I'm not a metal fan, but the movie has a handful of very catchy tunes. The concerts feel real enough. The dialog works and the plot moves along at a decent pace, delivering a number of laughs and a palpable feel for the rise-fall-reborn sequence of the Chris Cole/Izzy character.
Recommended for light-hearted viewing.