'Rock of Ages' -- Tom Cruises in a flimsy pretext of a story

Although a soundtrack heavy with Poison, Foreigner, Def Leppard, Twisted Sister and other "hair metal" bands suggests an appeal to nostalgia, the ideal viewer of "Rock of Ages" is probably a 12-year-old girl raised on "Glee" and "American Idol" and can identify with the musical aspirations of the starry-eyed (albeit smokin' hot) young heroine played by Julianne Hough.

Such a youth is likely the type of moviegoer who will find it more thrilling than silly when our heroine takes the stage during a climactic Sunset Strip concert sequence and chirps: "Are you ready to rock?"

Meanwhile, adults who fondly remember the likes of Bret Michaels and David Lee Roth in their pouty, poofy heydays might do better sticking to the music -- perhaps the two-disc "'80s Metal: Gold" or "Power Ballads: Gold" collections from Hip-O Records, with their generous samples of Winger, White Lion and Warrant, to pull just three names from a list that "goes on and on and on," as Steve Perry would sing.

If the heart of rock 'n' roll is still beating, as Huey Lewis suggested, it's a Jarvik-like mechanical contraption in "Rock of Ages," adapted from a 2006 stage musical that, judging from this film, functioned as little more than a 1980s classic-rock jukebox.

Directed by Adam Shankman (whose wonderful 2007 "Hairspray" remains the best musical of the new millennium), and scripted in part by the usually reliable Justin Theroux ("Tropic Thunder"), "Rock of Ages" offers yet more evidence that Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' " has become, for all intents and purposes, our new national anthem.

It also offers Tom Cruise in a demonic codpiece. But more on that later.

A graduate of TV's "Dancing with the Stars" and Craig Brewer's "Footloose" movie remake, Hough stars as naive Sherrie Christian, a Tulsa, Okla., transplant who arrives on the Sunset Strip in 1987 with a heart full of dreams, a suitcase of treasured vinyl record albums and "$17 to my name." Her surname probably explains why she's introduced leading a bus of cross-country pilgrims in a singalong to Night Ranger's "Sister Christian," a truly dreadful song that remains forever claimed by Alfred Molina and "Boogie Nights."

Her first night in Los Angeles, Sherrie gets a job as a waitress at the Bourbon Room, the Strip's premier rock venue; the club's managers are played by an amusing long-haired Alec Baldwin and a slumming Russell Brand. (Their banter builds to a nice payoff that is the movie's only bold moment, scored to REO Speedwagon's "I Can't Fight This Feeling.")

An aspiring singer, Sherrie immediately connects with a fresh-faced busboy and would-be rock star named Drew (Diego Boneta, formerly of Mexican soap operas). At the famous Hollywood sign, Drew expresses his love for Sherrie with Foreigner's "I've Been Waiting for a Girl Like You."

Other hit songs are employed for less romantic reasons.

An anti-rock zealot (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who might be described as a sexy Tipper Gore breaks into Pat Benatar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" while plotting to rid the Sunset Strip of the "satanic" influence of heavy metal. You'll sympathize with the prudes, however, when pro-rock forces fight back with a chorus of Starship's "We Built This City."

The movie's god of rock is Stacee Jaxx, lead singer of a band called Arsenal, who begins his seduction of a statuesque Rolling Stone reporter (Malin Akerman) with Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive."

Stacee is played by Cruise, and the film stops in its tracks for about 20 minutes to admire the louche theatrics of the preening superstar as preening superstar. Accompanied by a menacing baboon named Hey Man, Stacee wears chaps, a demon-faced codpiece and an Axl Rose headband. "Pour Some Sugar on Me," he sings, perhaps addressing voters in the Best Supporting Actor Oscar category.

Stacee is far more interesting than the young leads, even when Sherrie hits low ebb and takes a job at a strip club managed by Justice Charlier (Mary J. Blige). Blige can't act but at least can really sing. This time-wasting detour from what already was a flimsy pretext of a story is especially pointless since the Venus Club is the type of "strip" joint exclusive to PG-13 movies: Even when wrapping themselves in Cirque du Soleil poses around poles and stamping their stack-heeled feet like horses learning to count, the dancers bare nothing below the neck but arms, legs and midriffs.

The film's inevitable happy ending celebrates the liberating power of rock 'n' roll over the naysaying hypocrisy of the censors. What we have here is a Pyrrhic victory at best, however. The boy-band-friendly style of dance-pop amusingly parodied here now rules the charts, along with rap, referenced in a single disparaging throwaway line. Meanwhile, the spandexed "hair band" is regarded with the type of curious, bemused affection previously reserved for harmonica trios and barbershop quartets.

Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, suggestive dancing, some profanity and the depiction of heavy drinking.