Rainn Wilson stars in this tepid School Of Rock knock-off about a former heavy-metal drummer who is ditched by his band just when they are on the brink of stardom but gets a second shot at fame when he joins his high-school nephew's rock band and goe
s on tour. Mocking golden gods of rock should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel with Ted Nugent. Yet The Rocker, inset right, directed by The Full Monty's Peter Cattaneo, is the stuff of a b-side. It badly wants to be This Is Spinal Tap, but ends up more like an uninspired episode of The Partridge Family. Too many scenes feel as overused and overfamiliar as the intro riff to 'Smoke On The Water', from the shot of a gym full of aghast teens to the slow song that is transformed into a smash hit when someone suddenly decides to alter the tempo.
Less the face of rock debauchery, more like Garrison Keillor's lost twin brother, Wilson's face-pulling gets old quite quickly too. Ex-Beatles drummer Pete Best, who is almost unrecognisable as himself, has a cameo at a bus-stop that's so brief you'll miss it if you blink. Occasionally amusing, but when it's Rainn, it bores.
On general release from Friday
LA ZONA
*** Rodrigo Plá's hard-hitting debut feature about the vigilante actions of residents in an affluent Mexican suburb after three boys break into a gated community and leave a woman and a security guard dead. The community of La Zona decide to take matters into their own hands, and the result gets rather overblown in the unfolding chase. Plá certainly piles on the tension, along with the politics, but it's hard to build an effective, intelligent thriller on caricature.
Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, from Friday
CITY OF EMBER (PG)
** Post-apocalyptic drama set in a crumbling underground metropolis where two youngsters (Saoirse Ronan, below, and Harry Treadaway) race against time, searching for clues to unlock the ancient mystery that could save the people of the City of Ember. Bill Murray and Tim Robbins also star but all this the cosmic tension never produces a work of ingenuity.
On general release from Friday
MUTANT CHRONICLES (18)
** Based on a popular role-playing board game, Thomas Jane, of The Punisher, is a soldier trying to keep Earth from being overrun by evil mutant zombies in the year 2707. That's a tiny bit scarier than the homicidal tree-pollen in the recent The Happening, and it at least provides more opportunities for trendy bloodletting. Lovers of fake blood will find Mutant Chronicles a generous movie. Ron Perlman, Sean Pertwee and John Malkovich provide snarling support.
On general release from Friday
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