I must admit, Rock Star has some cool packaging. Hard rock, searing guitars, girls, managers, drugs, band conflicts, crazed fans, tour schedules – and in the midst of it an introspective coming to terms with identity and reality. It’s just that this movie has already been made. It’s called Almost Famous and it was much, much better. Rock Star is a weak imitation.

Of course, Rock Star has its own twist on the matter. Chris Cole (Mark Wahlberg) is the lead singer of a tribute band to a rock group called Steel Dragon. He is obsessed with the lead singer of Steel Dragon (Jason Flemyng) and does everything he can to imitate him as closely as possible. He doesn’t want to write his own songs because he wants to sing Steel Dragons’; he doesn’t want to live his own life.

It’s pretty clear what will happen when Steel Dragon’s kick their lead singer out of the band and invite Chris to join them since he can sing their songs so well. It’s also obvious what will happen to Chris’ girlfriend, Emily (Jennifer Aniston). Chris and Emily are driven apart and Chris falls into the hard world of sex, drugs and rock and roll, where things aren’t as golden as they seemed to be.

Most significantly, no longer having an idol to imitate, he becomes lost in an existential void and does what he must to “discover himself”. I like the idea, but it could have been written much better. Rock Star kills too much time with rock clichés and often feels like it’s just building up to a climax that it doesn’t have time to thoroughly explore when it gets there.

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