Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

best movie i've ever seen.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Lead singer of a tribute band (Marky Mark) becomes lead singer of the real band he idolizes.So, I see comments saying this is another movie Jennifer Aniston ruined. Well, that is half true. She definitely makes it worse and every scene she is in amounts to a steaming pile of doo. Even her voice is grating and it is hard to take her seriously.But the movie would have stunk either way. It has a good idea, sort of, especially since this really happened (to Journey). But it is not funny enough to be a comedy or serious enough to be a drama. It just sort of... is. It would have been significantly better if it had a little more humor in it and could have been passed off as a mockumentary. I mean, yeah, we already have "Spinal Tap", but it wouldn't have to be that silly.

2001's "Rock Star" is loosely based on the metal band Judas Priest, who hired the lead singer of an Ohio JP tribute band, Tim "Ripper" Owens, after losing their original singer, Rob Halford, aka 'the metal god' (taken from the Priest song "Metal Gods"), which explains why the movie was originally to be called "The Metal God". All the major plot points of this film parallel the Judas Priest story; only the names and times have been altered.In "Rock Star" the band is Steel Dragon (fictional of course), the singer of the tribute band is Chris 'Izzy' Cole (Mark Wahlberg) and the man he's replacing is Bobby Beers (Jason Flemyng). Jennifer Aniston plays Izzy's girlfriend Emily and the Steel Dragon band members include Dominic West (who's excellent as always), Jason Bonham, Jeff Pilson and Zakk Wylde. Timothy Spall and Dagmara Dominczyk also have prominent roles as Steel Dragon's road manager and public relations manager respectively.The Ripper Owens story is an excellent tale for a film and this is a good movie, but the times are a bit off. In reality Rob Halford left Judas Priest in late 1991, corresponding to the advent of grunge, and Ripper Owens replaced him in early 1996; in the film the original singer leaves circa 1989 and the tribute band singer replaces him almost immediately. Ripper Owens didn't leave Judas Priest until 2003 whereas Izzy obviously leaves somewhere around late 1991/early 1992."Rock Star" is just an enjoyable experience, especially if you're personally familiar with the 80s/early 90s' metal scene. The soundtrack includes numerous great songs from that era, as well as the 70s (like Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold"). Unfortunately there's not one cut by Judas Priest (!). Apparently Judas Priest were originally linked to the project but ultimately disassociated themselves due to failing to reach a financial agreement for the rights to the story; this is when the producers decided to "re-imagine" the tale, as they say. This is all well and good but shouldn't there be as least one Priest song in the soundtrack? Where's the justice? The film takes the middle road between advocating the rock star lifestyle and decrying it. It shows both the glories and the pitfalls. When something's no longer fun and genuine it's simply time to move on -- to thine own self be true. Such experiences naturally have both positive and negative elements. Even if the experience ends up being more bad than good it's a necessary stepping stone to who you ultimately become, that is, who you are, your true success. A good example is Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P. (check out their 2009 album BABYLON to get my drift).***SPOILER ALERT*** (Don't read this paragraph if you haven't seen the film). Some criticize the movie on the grounds that Chris (Izzy) turns to playing grunge in Seattle after leaving Steel Dragon, maintaining that he was a 'poser' all along. But didn't Rob Halford himself explore different styles of music when he left Judas Priest, in particular the band Two? In the film Chris accomplishes his dream and by the end has had his fill of the whole 'rock star' phenomenon with all its ridiculous trappings; he was older & wiser now and understandably wanted to write his OWN songs (as he wasn't allowed in Steel Dragon, neither was Ripper in real life) and opts to explore his art. Keep in mind that Ripper himself was a grunge fan and fronted a grunge tribute band called Seattle in the early 90s. When Chris leaves Steel Dragon grunge is the flavor of the month and he just goes with it; he's still young and he's exploring, that's it. I'm sure he'll go on to revisit his metal roots in the future just as Rob Halford ultimately did after his 90s' meanderings; the film just doesn't take us that far ahead. ***END SPOILER*** FINAL WORD: "Rock Star" may not be great but it's certainly an enjoyable film on the late 80s/early 90s music scene. It's equal parts dramatic, fun, funny, realistic, inspiring, educational and sobering.GRADE: B (6.5/10) INCIDENTAL NOTE: I was the guitarist/songwriter for a metal band in the early 90s and we opened up for Tim Owens' JP tribute band in Youngstown, OH in the winter of 1995. I knew the guitarist of his band and I got to meet Tim. A year later he was a friggin' member of Judas Priest(!).

I had a whole morning to sleep on it, but I'm still not sure what to think of this. First off, it was very weird seeing Dominick West play a 'Judas Priest' guitarist, knowing him thus far only as 'McNulty' - I'll get over it. But somehow the credibility of all the characters ánd the story was practically nil, even if it was based on actual events. Well, 'based on', but the story is presented as a wide range of mostly clichéd and silly incidents built around a half-hearted (romantic) storyline - even if the premise is original, and a few scenes are reasonably impressive (such as the one where 'Izzy' does his first live performance and wins over the crowd), but mostly because of the simple facts, not the filmic value of it.In all honesty, a lot of those clichés are to be expected in a film about '80s (hard)rock music, but this portrayal didn't convince me. The comedy side of it isn't witty enough (while it's desperately trying to be), and any dramatic impact is destroyed by the fragmentary approach that wants to get every rock'n'roll cliché in there. And then the look of it (settings, clothing, photography, etc.) was just dull and uninspired, except for maybe the vast set ups of the big gigs.The music wasn't all that either, in my opinion, and I wish they hadn't put in any pop music at all, which just didn't belong there. The acting is just so so, of which Wahlberg's first part of his job (the young fanatic) was the most convincing. Well, I suppose this was one I just had to see (hardrock / Jennifer Aniston / 'based on a true story involving Judas Priest'). And by the way, did anyone else notice the Anvil reference in the end? Or was I seeing things?Only remotely interesting and entertaining; 4 out of 10.

"Rock Star," for a movie that is about the excesses of rock and roll, is a pretty dull show all the way through. Not to mention this may be one of the most downright predictable movies you will EVER see.Inspired by the story of Judas Priest tribute-band singer Ripper Owens who actually ends up in Priest, there was a lot of potential for a good movie here. But really, this movie is crap. You can easily guess the entire plot before the film starts. You can even guess how each individual scene is going to go. And every scene is so strained, it actually makes "the wild life of rock and roll" look pretty boring and dull.Just goes to show what bad film making can do - turn a decent story with good movie potential into crap.The acting isn't so bad, except maybe in Jennifer Aniston's case, as she can't act her way out of a paper bag. Who casted her anyway? She plays Walberg's metalhead "hot" girlfriend, except she just isn't hot, on top of that she can't act. Out of all the hot actresses, and even those that can act, they get Aniston? Anyway, if you really must sit through this movie, by all means do so, but believe me, you already know every single moment of the movie.