Review of Detroit Rock City

Introduction

Well, if you are thinking of watching this film because it’s a Kiss tribute think again, it’s not. It is a funny film with items in common with the like of recent films such as American Pie et all, it also draws from many eighties films of the same genre i.e. coming of age teenage comedies.

The basic plot is the trials and tribulations of four teenage boys trying to get to a Kiss concert at Detroit in 1978 after the chain smoking, overly religious mother of one of the boys burns there prized tickets in fear of her son listening to the devils music and the lads set out on a pilgrimage to find a way in to the concert. Make of the plot what you will :-).

Video

The film is presented in a somewhat soft 2.35:1 anamorphic print but has plenty detail and little artefacting throughout.

The movie itself is a reasonably well-filmed affair with some nice sequences and photography.

Audio

The soundtrack is the usual DD 5.1 affair with quite heavy use of the rears speakers to deliver the background music and some nice effects here and there. Your sub does not really get any work out but that didn’t bother me too much.

Features

The disk is well packed with features but the value of some of them is open to debate.

The deleted scenes are informative and show how they could have changed some of the tone of the film, but as is often the case you can see why they got cut.

The 5 commentaries that are listed are in fact 1 fairly bland directors commentary and 4 interviews that are interspersed at appropriate points in the film.

On top of this there are 2 music videos and cast and crew bios along with a small ‘behind the scenes’ feature.

The only vaguely novel feature on the disk is the option to view some of the Kiss concert footage from the end of the film using multiple angles, this is cool for the first 30 secs then you start to think ‘why’ as none of the angles are from massively different views of the concert .

Conclusion

Detroit Rock City was an amusing, gentle if somewhat clichéd movie. As long as you are not expecting something new, different or to memorable it is a fun romp through the lives of the four teenage boys and full of predictable laughs.

In summing up I would recommend this film to rent first and see how you get on. I was pleasantly surprised as I had herd this film was the pits and although it’s certainly no classic it is actually quite a reasonable way to spend 90mins.