Review: Katy Perry - Part Of Me

During this documentary/concert film following Katy Perry's California Dreams 2011 Tour, it's pointed out at several times that the singer is far from a record company puppet and that Perry oversees all aspects of what goes on when on the road - you quickly get the feeling that control extended to this film as at no point during Part Of Me does anyone having anything negative to say about Katy, shown as the devoted idol to her millions of Katycats and devoted wife trying her best to save her marriage to Russell Brand.

Yet only during the home-video tributes from fans about what an inspiration Katy is does this end up being as lame as it sounds, thanks to Perry having an interesting story to tell about her struggle to make it big against her ultra-religious upbringing and record company politics holding her back for years, alongside the slow break up of her marriage keeping your interest throughout and making sure that backstage segments don't all blur into one.

Concert footage is kept to montages and the odd number here and there, so anyone looking for the live experience will be disappointed - and whilst those who hate Perry's pop won't have their minds changed, there's enough of interest for those on the fence to mean that this is a film not just for the fans.

Review: Rock Of Ages

Despite its star-studded cast, Rock Of Ages can't hold a candle (or should that be a lighter?) to the Broadway and West End musical from which this has been remade.

Where the movie mostly disappoints is in the performances from Tom Cruise and Russell Brand, two castings that looked ingenious on paper but turn out to be massive letdowns. Cruise bizarrely plays rocker Stacie Jaxx as a drug-damaged mumbling mystic instead of the cross between Les Grossman and Axl Rose we all hoped for, severely cutting down on laughs as a result. Brand should be able to play this kind of role in his sleep, but decides to adopt a bad Brummie accent and drop most of the shtick that made his turns as Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek so entertaining.

In fact the whole film seems to take its self to seriously, where the stage version embraced the cheesy nature of musicals and 80s cock rock, the films script lack of humour and dearth of any actual jokes throughout makes you think the producers have mistook what made Rock of Ages entertaining in the first place, making the love story more prominent when the fact that the plot was a bit rubbish was a joke to be mocked not maintained.