Horrible

Rating: 1/10 (15 March 2003)

As a big fan of Bowie and Iggy Pop I was excited to see this film. There really haven't been any acurate films about this important era in rock history....and there still isn't.
Firstly, Haynes seems to think that the Glam Movement was a sexual awakening and thus the major themes in this film rather heavy handidly deal primarily with the conflicts surrounding the sexual atractions among the major characters. The Glam movement, while yes, dealt with ideas of sexual identity, was not ONLY about sex.
Secondly, the music is missguided and the soundtrack fails as a homage to the ground breaking ROCK that Bowie, Iggy, Reed, Velvet Underground, etc. shocked our post-sixties world with. They accomplished huge feats in a small amount of time and left us with some classic songs. The songs in VG pale in comparison and capture little of the spirit of these performers and....well dwell upon the sex.
The script was terrible and even went so far as to borrow a similar structure as that of Citizen Kane. It's weak, pointless, the characters are ALL stereotypes....who pine away for each other....for want of sex.

If you are at all a fan of this era....go watch the re-release of Ziggy Stardust, or listen to lou Reed's Transformer or Berlin. Or better yet, read a book! You will learn more.
This movie is not just bad because of the unrelenting historical inacuracies, it's bad because it's poorly written, poorly directed, and poorly acted. Fundamentaly, it just plain stinks!
I'll give it a 2 out of ten stars simply because I finished it. I should never have rented it in the first place.