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| ROCKER, THE (2008) - PG-13
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SBD Star Rating:
by LEW IRWIN
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 Another Wednesday, another movie opening. Only The Rocker apparently has little chance of lifting the box office out of its usual end-of-August doldrums. Indeed David Wiegand observes in his review in the San Francisco Chronicle: "The opening date of the film was shifted around like the planchette on a Ouija board, a sure sign that the studio knew it had one of those ''Hollywood, we have a problem'' movies that needed to arrive in theaters in a relatively quiet part of the summer season." The movie, which stars Rainn Wilson, a co-star of NBC''s The Office, as an over-the-hill ex-drummer who returns from obscurity to push a young band into the limelight, is receiving some mighty discordant reviews from critics. "Leaden and unfunny" is the way Claudia Puig describes it in USA Today. Elizabeth Weitzman''s review in the New York Daily News is headlined: "Rainn Wilson is off his ''Rocker'' to take this role." Comments Stephen Holden in the New York Times: "Everything is secondhand and done by rote." Several critics suggest that the Rainn Wilson role was probably written for Jack Black and that Black turned it down. (There is no evidence that any such thing happened.) Writes Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe: "The Rocker is a grubby little redemption comedy that in every way feels like a consignment-shop Jack Black vehicle." The film does receive a few positive reviews. Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune writes: "It''s a lot of fun. Its spirit is genuine and, even with the odd vomit gag, fundamentally sweet." |
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