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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 32.1%
Worth A Look: 22.22%
Average: 11.11%
Pretty Bad: 12.35%
Total Crap: 22.22%
4 reviews, 57 user ratings
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| Detroit Rock City |
by Erik Childress
"The Ultimate Sellout"
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Detroit Rock City (*) – Good tunes are good tunes, whether it be disco or rock or KISS. That is what one of the characters says about halfway through Detroit Rock City – and I would tend to agree despite my abhoration of certain music genres. Dennis Miller said that’s why there were four solo KISS albums to choose from. One man’s Ace Frehley is another’s Peter Criss.I don’t know much about KISS and their music. I only know what I read about when I was five years old and they were still around, and the recent Psycho Circus reunion tour that they embarked on. I can’t say I’m a big fan nor do I place them anywhere near my hate list, but from what I’ve heard, KISS is always most remembered for the live shows they put on. Their music isn’t any more unique than your average hard rock band but they put on one hell of a concert. Which begs one to question, why KISS just do another live concert movie instead of selling out to a rancorous piece of celluloid like this. And yes – I said sellout and I’ll say it again. Sellout. This is not a true KISS movie, but rather a movie that uses KISS as a Macguffin for the four guys to go on their little adventure of fights, losing virginity, drugs, drinking and projectile vomiting. I haven’t seen the playlist on the film’s CD soundtrack, but in the film, I’d bet that 2 out of every 3 songs played in a non-KISS number. What’s the point? I counted 2 songs by AC/DC and one by Van Halen – but I don’t think there’s more than a half dozen songs by KISS in the whole movie. KISS fans should be pissed. This is like the 90’s version of Robert Zemeckis’ directorial debut I Wanna Hold Your Hand, where a bunch of young people did whatever they could to see the Beatles. Now I’m not a Beatles fan (please – hold your stones), but that film had more originality and more heart than anything in Detroit Rock City. To show you the lack of originality of the film’s script - one of the guy’s love interests is named Beth. How subtle. The film doesn’t go very far to convince me of the atmosphere of the 70s. After the pre-title sequence reintroducing us to 8-tracks and turntables and a title sequence of numerous (if not chronological) pop culture artifacts of the decade, the rest of the film could have been set today. The one kid’s mom (played by Lin Shaye who was the landlady in Kingpin and Magda in There’s Something About Mary) comes off as a cross between Piper Laurie in Carrie and Mrs. Broflofski (Kyle’s mom on South Park), preaching about the satanic aspects of the group KISS. Lucky for us, this topic was done and realized more fully in this summer’s South Park movie. That movie explored (hilariously) the effects that entertainment can have on children whose parents are too busy protesting the very same entertainment. Detroit Rock City uses four unlikable characters (one of them blatantly trying to be drug dealer Jay from the Kevin Smith movies) to give toilet humor a bad name again. This is the kind of movie that American Pie could have been, but succeeded in part to good writing and very likable characters. Why do films like this always make their heroes big potheads and, on the same note, why do they keep casting Edward Furlong in anything? These guys are unsympathetic, uninteresting, and terribly unfunny. Maybe this is a movie for people high on pot. Maybe only then will you find the movie and its characters funny. Then again, when you’re high on pot – isn’t pretty much anything funny? Whoever thought that the site of B-movie goddess Shannon Tweed (a.k.a. Mrs. Gene Simmons) would spice up interest in the movie. At least it did for me. And Mr. Tongue must be so proud (as co-producer of this film) to have his wife having to pay for sex from Edward Furlong of all people. If the movie had any credibility whatsoever, it lost it at this point. Gene Simmons said in a press release that it’s like these kids are on a journey for the Holy Grail. Well, if KISS is the metaphorical Holy Grail, then why can’t the film suggest to us why exactly KISS was so great. If they were so popular, why? The mano-a-mano battle of the music world in this film comes down to the bold suggestion that KISS was a lot better than disco. Big stretch.In this film you either an adult and like music like The Carpenters, or you’re young and you either like disco or KISS. Kinda makes you glad at the plethora of music choices we have today, no matter how much crap is out there. I mean, after all, good tunes are good tunes.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1570&reviewer=198
originally posted: 02/15/00 14:36:14
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USA
13-Aug-1999 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
02-Dec-1999 (MA)
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