Tom Cruise makes hair rock debut in Rock of Ages trailer

Tom Cruise as you never wanted to see him, in a wig, in a musical, playing eighties rock anthems. That’s right, it’s the first trailer for 

You’ve seen him warble The Righteous Brothers in a bar in Top Gun, you’ve seen him crump his way through the end credits of Tropic Thunder, and now’s your chance to see Tom Cruise tease up his hair and belt
out some eighties rock.

Rock of Ages, based on “the hit Broadway musical” according to the trailer (though you can’t say the same for its one-star review magnet UK transfer) comes from the director of 2007’s Hairspray, Adam Shankman. Featuring the music of Journey, Starship, REO Speedwagon, Styx, Foreigner, Poison, Europe, Mr Big, and Whitesnake, Rock of Ages is essentially the film version of those driving CD compilations we’re all supposed to buy our dads on Father’s Day.

Paul Giamatti, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Bryan Cranston, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Mary J Blige star alongside Cruise in a love story between a plucky newcomer to LA and the barman of a dingy music club which is threatened with demolition. Sound familiar? Perhaps that’s because it’s the exact plot of last year’s Burlesque (which was basically The Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie but with kinkier outfits).

Rock of Ages comes to the UK next June, but before all that, you can see Cruise scaling skyscrapers instead of speaker stacks in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, out on Monday 26^th December.