LOS ANGELES (CNN) - "Rock Star," a generic fame-and-fortune fantasy starring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston, badly wants us to question the meaning of All-American success. Unfortunately, unless you consider mid-1980s heavy metal to be the pinnacle of musical expression, it's more likely to make you question the meaning of rock and roll itself.
You've never seen so many embarrassing, big-willie poses. And the apparent attraction of the songs -- live performances take up a sizable chunk of the running time -- is that they sound exactly like several thousand FM-radio staples that are forever lodged in your cerebellum ... whether you want them there or not.
That wouldn't be so bad if, like "This is Spinal Tap," the script encouraged you to laugh at the endless stream of clich�s. But director Stephen Herek wants us to laugh when he sees fit, and drop to our knees in worship when he doesn't.
It makes sense that Herek also helmed "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." "Rock Star" is an excellent adventure undertaken by a dim protagonist who seldom decodes a situation beyond its obvious, "whoa, dude" attraction.
Rock star moves
Wahlberg plays Chris Cole, a likeable guy in 1980s Pittsburgh who worships a heavy metal group called Steel Dragon. Chris knows every screech and power chord of his heroes' work; he and his friends have even formed a Steel Dragon cover band. (In one of the funnier lines, Chris steadfastly insists that it's actually a "tribute" band.)
Chris has a remarkable set of pipes. While mashed against the stage during a Steel Dragon performance, his Axl Rose-like sing-along technique nearly overpowers the lead vocalist. "Hey," we're supposed to think, "this guy is talented." Too bad you can't ignore that he's also void of honest emotion and good taste.
Chris' girlfriend, Emily (Aniston, sporting an unfortunate period haircut), also manages his cover band. When the other guys in the group tire of Chris' perfectionism and all-encompassing obsession with Steel Dragon, they boot him out. Emily follows, putting her faith in Chris' ability to duplicate every facile rock-star move known to man.
Her conviction is quickly rewarded when the guitar player for Steel Dragon unexpectedly phones Chris. The band is looking for a new lead singer, and they've been given a tape of him impressively performing one of their songs. Would he be interested in an audition? Needless to say, Chris effortlessly floors the group with his falsely expressive scream.
Phony moralism
In what passes for a shocking turn of events, Chris is quickly thrust into the heart of a never-ending rock and roll circus. Bottle-blonde babes with skin-tight leather pants and too much jewelry claw for the chance to pleasure him, as poor Emily watches from the sidelines, chewing on her fingernails. Drugs and booze are everywhere.
Soon enough, sweet, innocent Chris has been transformed into an over-sexed, over-stoned creep. You'd think you're watching an episode of VH-1's "Behind the Music," minus the de rigueur "then I woke up with a needle in my arm" confessional sequence. But that would force an NC-17 rating, and producers don't want that much rock 'n' roll.
Wahlberg and Aniston are both talented comic performers, and they manage to squeeze a few laughs out of the dialogue. But John Stockwell's script is a poorly constructed hodgepodge of signifiers with no emotional thrust to guide them.
We're supposed to be quietly appalled by the very things that are being used to draw thrill-seeking adolescents to the movie. When the majority of the picture consists of dazzling depravity, a moralistic wrap-up not only seems contradictory, it seems like an outright lie. Grunge is on the horizon as the movie ends, but it looks like penance instead of a sophisticated form of musical outrage. You can't help thinking that Steel Dragon's pot-bellied geezers are having a lot more fun on that tour bus.
"Rock Star" contains drunken nipple-piercing, sex, drugs, sex, drugs, and sex and drugs. There's also an odd homophobic vibe that makes sense given the mixed-signal posturing, but only gets mentioned once in a while. George Clooney co-produced, for what it's worth.
