Against All Expectations..

Rating: 10/10 (19 February 2004)

This was a brilliant film. Despite the fact that the plot was very easy to follow, and a lot of the devices used can be seen a mile off, this film is still amazing in what it tries to portray.
As someone else who commented on here said, it is a great look into the mind of a true rocker :) It's also a really good feel good story, and I'm not sure why people feel that this sort of thing doesn't deserve to make it to the cinemas, as this is what cinema is about to most people - going out for a night and having a damn good time, and coming out of the place with a big old silly grin on your face.
Jack Black, as always, makes the film, and with his Tenacious D background (didn't see Kyle in it anywhere.. Whats going on?!) his character really worked well I feel. And a lot of the stuff going on may well have been contrived, but if you exercise a bit of suspension of disbelief then it's almost like all the events in the film were 'possible' broadly speaking, the band that won the battle giving away the encore is all plausible in a way.. At least it worked in my head :)
All in all it may have been done before, but that doesn't mean it can't be done well - look at the Magnificent 7.