A poor testament to the glam rock era

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 1999)

While I was not alive during the glam rock era, I know this film defames those who helped make it happen. The film makers, encapsulated by visual imagery and shock shots of homoeroticism lost sight of some of the story of the glam rock era (not to say that these weren't big factors). This film focused itself too much on the relationships of Brian Slade and Curt Wild, who were bad portrayals of their real life counterparts. While Jonathan Rhyes Myers and Ewan MacGregor passed themselves off easily as David Bowie and Iggy Pop, respectively, they failed to capture the emotions and feelings of the characters or of the period. Christian Bale's character, the most interesting of the three gets little screen time of his own. The film's most intriguing qualities are the visuals and the finale with Christian Bale and Ewan MacGregor, perhaps stating clearly one of the most obvious things to come from the artists of the glam era: "We set out to change the world and ended up changing ourselves." If the rest of the movie would have followed suit, it would have been fantastic. I can see why Bowie wouldn't lend his name to this fractured fictitious tale of one of music's most notorious eras.