The Runaways (Saturday, March 21, 2010) (21)

This is a totally lifeless movie about the history of a band you've never heard of, the Runaways, in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. The only reason why they are at all special is because they were the first band Joan Jett was in. They were the first major-ish "all-girl" rock band and apparently sold sex, sexual independence, bi-sexuality and a very average rock sound.

The only reason I can figure out that the film is getting polite reviews is that the American men who are generally reviewing it are so misogynistic and homophobic that a slight taste of lesbianism is enough to get them erect and their brains clouded with hormones so they miss the rest of this mess. The lesbianism isn't very special, erotic or believable and the film never rises above a tired yarn about a garage band hitting it big-ish and then coming back to earth. The production values are embarrassingly low, which distracts from the story and makes it incredibly hard for the slightest suspension of disbelief.

The movie opens with 15-year-old Joan, played by the dead-behind-the-eyes Kristen Stewart, buying dirty leather clothes, being kissed by a ratty scene girl and sniffing glue - because she's disaffected, you see. (Of course this only leads one to think about the great Ramones song "Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue" - a musical height that we never see throughout the rest of the film.)

Then we see teenage Cherie Currie, played by the cute-kid-star-cum-grown-up-beauty Dakota Fanning, who is obsessed with Ziggy Stardust, lipsynching her way through a Bowie song in a high school talent show. She's from a broken home and likes to go to clubs with her sister. You get it?

One night out in LA, Joan, who plays guitar, meets music producer and promoter Kim Fowley, played by the tremendously talented Michael Shannon (who is badly used here). They set out to form an all-girl rock band. They meet Cherie at a night club and audition her. She sounds terrible, but they decide that she has the right look for the band. Once they start practicing and playing together they sound terrible to me, but apparently they are good. Their sound is not really that hard or punk - it's sorta hard-ish pop and somehow sexually liberated on the surface.

The band begins to tour in crapholes and begins to use drugs and alcohol. They become very sexual, fucking their manager, roadies and all sorts of people they meet on the road. They also screw each other in very, very PG ways. We never clearly see that they really love each other (though we're told they do). Joan seems mostly bored and interested in sex because she's not really interested in anything else. Cherrie seems stoned mostly and not really in control of much.

They go on tour to Japan, which is a surprise because it's not clear they've really hit it big. (Director Flora Sigismondi does a terrible job with this sequence that is clearly shot in downtown LA with a bunch of *Asian* extras playing excited Japanese teens - this is a joke). They fight a lot because Cherrie is too hot for them (I mean, objectively, Dakota is hot!) and then when they're cutting what seems to be their first album (at least the first one we see them working on) they break up.

The film has absolutely no emotional flow and terrible pacing. We see a bad band playing music, then they get messed up on the road, then they mess with one another, then they break up. At no point do we like them or care if they turn out well. It feels like it's one slow, bad scene after another. There are no climaxes and no high moments. Even when the band has a good show in Japan, they still sound like they can't play a good note.

Bizarrely there is almost no music used in the film - either music from the Runaways or from bands they might have been listening to. OK - there's one Iggy Pop song and one Bowie song, but that's about it. This is laughable in a movie about a great moment in music (when punk was in its formative years and glam was hitting its peak). It almost felt like they couldn't get the rights to more music there was so little in the film.

The acting throughout is overdone and generally bad and I think it's about time that we all admit that despite Kristin Stewart being a central part of one of the biggest film franchises of all time (Twilight) she really is untalented and terrible. It's actually hard to know if she's trying to act like a lifeless rat or if that's just how she is. Dakota Fanning is not as bad as Stewart, but she's not very good either. Michael Shannon is generally very good, but he's way overdone here. Like a beautiful steak, he's good without all sorts of toppings and marinades and stuff. Just cook him on two sides and serve.

Generally I found the lesbian make-out scenes tepid, safe and less than erotic. It seems like they're just screwing around for lack of anyone else to screw around with. Of course maybe there is a connection between these two, but, again, Stewart is so bad that you couldn't tell it. I never get the sense that Cherrie is all that into the sex and we see Joan having sex with men too... All in all, it seems like a cheap trick to get two young starlets (Stewart and Fanning) to kiss so people will talk about it and rush out to see it. I hate being manipulated like this.

I don't care that the movie apparently looks like old Super-8 footage or old Kadachrome pictures and early music videos. It's super boring, badly made and badly acted. The script is terrible and the direction seems unaware of what we're seeing and feeling.

Stars: .5 of 4