Compendium of clichés with great acting

Rating: 5/10 (23 July 2010)

I don't think I have ever given 5/10 to a movie, as that is such a neutral, wishy-washy evaluation. If a movie is not good, it is usually bad or annoying to some degree. Yet 5/10 describes "The Runaways" perfectly. It is neither good nor bad.
On the good side, the acting is indeed good. I don't think I have ever seen an actor capture a living celebrity as perfectly as Kristen Stewart captures the young Joan Jett. In voice, appearance, personality and mannerisms, Stewart is indistinguishable from the real thing. It is an amazing performance. Likewise, Michael Shannon did almost as good a job as ultra-pretentious huckster Kim Fowley, although Shannon is more physically imposing than Fowley and looks more like Dee Dee Ramone than the actual Fowley. Shannon plays ultracamp but doesn't really look it. Dakota Fanning wasn't quite as good at playing Cherie Currie, the real Cherie being thinner and hotter and looking much older than Fanning. Fanning seems more innocent and diffident than Currie did on stage, but maybe that is closer to reality than Currie's stage persona. The set designers and costumers really put a lot of care into getting the 1970's fashions and furnishings right. Also much of the music is quite good. However only a minority is Runaways songs.
However acting alone cannot carry a movie. The script is just a compendium of rock clichés, the sort of fantasies a sheltered early teenager with a low threshold for rebelliousness would have about rock stars. Difficult startup playing house parties that get busted by the cops, lame rebelliousness, alcoholic or abusive parents, exploitative manipulative Maclarenesque manager haranguing his charges about rock & roll being all about sex and rebellion while misappropriating their revenues, lesbian experimentation, record deal with unhip record industry execs, screaming fans on overseas tours, rock magazine headlines, seedy hotels, male chauvinists saying a woman's place is in the home, personality clashes and drug addiction leading to the band's downfall. It's not necessarily inaccurate, but you've seen all this a squillion times before. There is no real story outside of this series of clichés, nothing at all unexpected. It's not notably boring or annoying, but sure isn't interesting either.
Still at least it's not a live action comic book for 13 year old boys or a Prince Charming chick flick for youngish single women, which every other film seems to be nowadays, so it's worth seeing if nothing else is on.