PREMISE
Rick, a washed-up wedding singer, and Danny, a fading boy band star, bond over music and a late-night jam session.
THE GOOD STUFF
JONAS & RUDD (the singers) – The real magic of this movie is noticing the contrasting singing styles of Nick Jonas and Paul Rudd. Jonas, of course, is a very polished pop singer, and Paul Rudd has the voice of… a casual singer who is above average, quite honestly. This actually helps in the film when you see the contrast between the characters.
The whole point of the Jonas character is that he is a washed-up pop star who is trying to manufacture his sound in such a way to get back to the top of the charts and all that. I don’t know if this is Jonas being self-aware or something like that…. But there’s such hollowness to the way he sings the film’s central song, compared to Rudd, whose performance is way livelier. It’s such an amazing juxtaposition between who the characters are and how they perform. And that’s not even mentioning the film’s plot yet.
JONAS & RUDD (the performances) – Another smart move this movie makes is NOT to give these two enough screen time together, because whenever they are on screen, they do match each other quite well, both comedically and dramatically. Jonas is the standout here. This is the best he’s ever been, and it is easy to see that he identified with the material in a major way.
This is a home run from Paul Rudd, but it’s not a home run that we haven’t seen him hit before. Even though this film is more dramatic than comedic, it is still right in that wheelhouse of lovable everyman overcoming a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Rudd is an absolute legend, and his work only gets better the older he seems to get (Hasn’t aged since the early 2010s for sure).
THE BAD STUFF
THE JONAS SIDE OF THINGS – There is a cannon event that binds the two lead characters, and the brunt of the reaction of that event falls on Rudd’s character. We see him a lot more when the s*** hits the fan, and that’s totally understood. But the more interesting side is definitely Nick Jonas’s character arc. This film is really good at subverting expectations and tells both sides of a complicated issue, and there’s a lot of pain that this character must face head-on that he is not prepared for.
Unfortunately, a lot of that is off-screen, and instead of giving us fleshed-out portrayals of his relationships with people and his art… we get montages. There is a transformation of this character that is quite noticeable compared to the man we first meet when the film starts, but we don’t see it. We get montaged to death.
THE SONG – Mind you, I completely understand why this song is the central part of this story. I can understand why it’s played more than once. But this song is played frequently throughout the film. If the song itself is around 3 minutes long, I’m going to guess you hear 15 minutes’ worth of it played throughout the film. And it slaps. It is a great song. But man, after about the fourth time listening to it over 2 hours, I’d had my fill. I don’t know if many other musicals that bleed the main track of the song to death as this film does.
THE ENDING – It took me a whole day to process this ending and decide whether it was satisfactory. And ultimately, I conclude that no, it isn’t. Not because it doesn’t make sense or anything like that, and not because it is insulting to one’s intelligence. If I were to grade the ending of this movie as one would a high school test, it would not be an F per se; it would be an incomplete. Unfortunately, this is one of those endings where the audience member must discuss what could have happened rather than see what actually happens.
THE UGLY STUFF
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It’s incredible to see how movie musicals like this can get so much right, and there are so many musical biopics with really iconic figures that come nowhere close to greatness. John Carney has made three films that are more comprehensive MUSICALS than the biopics about Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Amy Winehouse, Bob Marley, and Whitney Houston. That really is such a shame.
POWER BALLAD is in theaters now
