The "jukebox musical" has been around on the big screen for a while now — ranging from 1978's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" to 2008's "Mamma Mia!" — and they all face the same existential problem: how to shoehorn a fistful of well-known pop songs into something resembling a story line.
"Rock of Ages," based on the 2008 Broadway musical of the same name, plunders the catalog of 1980s hair-metal power ballads to tell the story of, well, a couple of kids in the '80s who dream of being hair-metal stars. Points for originality, people.
Julianne Hough (country singer and "Footloose" remake star) and Diego Boneta (TV's "Pretty Little Liars") play our star-crossed lovers, Sherrie and Drew. She's just a small-town girl, living in a lonely world, she took the midnight, uh, bus to Los Angeles' Sunset Strip. He's just a city boy, who sees her in a smoky room, blah, blah, blah, and immediately lands her a job at the Whiskey a Go Go look-alike club at which he bartends. The two endure romantic complications while waiting for their big break as musicians. Wait a minute: Didn't I just review this movie, and wasn't it called "Burlesque"?