This was pretty good; dirty, raunchy, in your face and capturing the spirit and essence of the mid 1970's perfectly.The story follows the conception and early days of "The Runaways" an all girl punk band that took the world by storm and focuses mostly on the tumultuous relationship between Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.I'll admit to questioning the casting here and initially having a hard time excepting Dakota Fanning in the role of sex-kitten junkie Currie. She does a fantastic job though and her downward spiral was the part of the story that interested me the most. I'm not a huge fan of K-Stew but she looks just like and captures the toughness of Joan Jett really well. I did get tired of seeing her in leather pants in every single scene though. The clothes and hair in general are super fun, the music is great, the story as a whole felt kinda disjointed. Michael Shannon is suitably weird/sleazy as their manager. 8/12/14

The Runaways were the first all girl rock group, put together by a sleazy manager who saw a gap in the market. In their line-up was a very young Joan Jett... she would go on to much greater things with a group called The Blackhearts who would score a huge hit with a cover of I Love Rock And Roll, which would sell over ten million copies in the USA alone. The reason you probably haven't heard of the Runaways is perhaps because a) They had a massive falling out when the co-lead singer, Cherie Currie(!) decided to quit early into their creation, and b) Judging by the material in this movie at least, their music wasn't actually that good. Oh well, c'est la vie...The 70's was all booze, sex and drugs according to those who witnessed it, and the film demonstrates that in graphic detail with a catalogue of debauchery and mayhem. Quite how these young bodies can stand so much abuse is beyond me, but hey... If all the Rolling Stones are still alive, I guess that's possible. There's also an awful lot of profanities exchanged between these amateur musicians... if you took any of these girls home to meet your mother, she'd most likely have a heart attack, You can't help but feel though for all they THINK they're doing for feminism, they're still being exploited in a different way... And most of their fanbase seem to consist of either dirty older men, and young girls who should know better.Dakota Fanning completely ditches her good-girl image as the depraved and vulnerable Cherie, who sleeps with girls and boys during the course of events and snorts more blow than a cheap hooker. Kristen Stewart also surprises as the openly gay Joan Jett... free of the shackles of her usual downbeat roles, she portrays the boisterous and spirited young future star with relish. The reason why, despite all the talent on show, this doesn't score higher is not much happens in the 90 minute run time... Just a few performances of their one hit song and an impromptu trip to Japan, before Cherie leaves and the movie is as good as over. Oh, there's some stuff involving Cherie's fractious family life and the crush Joan has on her, but none of this is particularly exhilarating.They may have been trailblazers in a way, but in my opinion the footprint they left on the industry was smaller than a mouse's. There are no real classics in their repertoire, and the only people who fondly remember them these days are either blinded by nostalgia or devotees of Joan Jett who adore everything she does. It's rather odd that a studio would bankroll a film about an average band that struggle for a few years before ending acrimoniously, such groups are ten a penny. But I suppose the fact they're female gives it novelty value, but not enough to convince me they were anything great... even if they had stayed together. 6/10

Back in the 70's, The Runaways was one of the first all-girl rock bands, initiated by then 16-year-old Joan Jett, who later went on to gain world fame with her band The Blackhearts. Now, I might be somewhat biased on this particular subject, because I am a huge fan of 70's (punk)rock, and especially female rock artists, but I am also a very critical film reviewer. The Runaways therefore, leaves me feeling in limbo.I love musical biopics as much as I love the music itself, and since The Runaways falls exactly into my favourite genre of music, I thought this film would be nothing other than a win-win flick for me. However, I felt rather quickly discouraged from the build-up on. When you are telling a true-to-life story, I consider it an important issue to let the audience know who we're dealing with, what's going on and perhaps most importantly, why. These are real people and I want to know why they are who they are, and what motivated them to walk their chosen path in life. The film starts off with alternating scenes of Joan Jett and her soon to be band mate Cherie Currie. Doing stuff that, well... isn't that interesting. It doesn't tell us much about these girls except that they like punk rock and David Bowie. Honestly, having only seen the film last night, it's all I can remember about the first 15 minutes or so. And so the film continues.They form a band, are taken under the wing of weirdo record producer/manager Kim Fowley, become famous and at some point, break up. The way director Floria Sigismondi tells the story, you'd think it was actually that easy. And this is exactly where the problem lies: bad direction. Possibly even worse editing and screenplay. We are given almost zero back-story of the lives of these young girls, and strangely, literally nothing at all about the personal life of Joan Jett. What makes it even stranger is the fact that the real Joan Jett was actually executive producer of this film, which completely puzzles me considering her part was so badly written. Her character comes across as not much more than a bystander in her own story.At least we're offered snippets of information about Cherie Currie. We know that she comes from an instable family and that her sister (who is in fact her twin – something I had to learn from Wikipedia since it's never told in the film...) is the only one she is at least somewhat close to. Again though, strangely, what is never told here is that this girl was raped when she was 14 – an incident which strongly determined the person she would become later on. Very weird to leave out of a biopic.It is my understanding that the rest of the band didn't give permission for their life story to be used in the film, and it shows. On the one hand, it's a shame because the back-story of the band is already so badly underexposed. On the other, I can't blame them, because this film would have done them no justice whatsoever.The story of The Runaways is told as though it all happened overnight: formation, fame, break-up; in what feels like no more than a short year maybe. When in fact they released four albums, three of which with Cherie. Truly awful screenplay.The actors though, are not at all to blame. Kristen Stewart embodies Joan Jett perfectly, she's got the looks, the voice (she sings all her parts herself) and the swagger. Dakota Fanning as Cherie does a very good job also. Although she may not look or sound that much like the real Cherie Currie, her acting more than makes up for it. But then again, anyone who's seen Dakota before, whether as a child actor or teenager, already knows she's a very convincing young actress. The rest of the band, much like their characters, are barely there to be noticed...The part of Kim Fowley is played by Michael Shannon, and he approaches it with a "love it or hate it" attitude. Personally, I think he was an absolute scene-stealer (which is not necessarily a good thing, because obviously this film is not about him – though it is the direction that is to blame, not the actor), acting completely over the top, crude, and horribly inappropriate. Though I can see why some people absolutely hated his character. Simple: there is nothing likable about him. He's an a**hole, and a big one too. As an acting part however, it was obvious that Michael Shannon had a ball playing this guy, and I think that's what makes his role very enjoyable to watch.The actors really do make up for a lot in The Runaways. All parts are equally well-played and very enjoyable. But when the technical aspects of a film are this poor, not even the best actors in the world can make it a success. Zero story, zero character development, shoddy editing and, worst of all, not enough music! Probably the stupidest thing about the whole film – you'd think that, in a film about The Runaways, there'd be more than two or three original Runaways songs! Yet we have to listen to "Cherry Bomb" over and over again, and we get only titbits of their other songs. Sheesh.The Runaways may not have been the most groundbreaking band in history, but they certainly were a cool band of young rock chicks, and they deserved a better film than this one. I would say it's fun to watch once if you're into this kind of music, but that's it. Such a shame.

Though it's named after and supposedly about the groundbreaking all-girl rock band of the 1970s, a more accurate title and description of this film would be "The Rise and Fall of Cherie Currie, guest starring Joan Jett and with a special appearance by Kim Fowley". They just took the story Currie wrote in her book about her life, sandwiched in some stuff with Jett and let Michael Shannon tear the scenery apart with his bare teeth. If you wanted to look back through the decades and know who The Runaways were and why they were important, this movie will only give you a glimmer of a clue. Maybe they were so much of their moment that you can't really appreciate them if you weren't there at the time. The fact remains this motion picture doesn't tell you anything you can't see on any one of a hundred "Behind the Music" shows on VH-1.With that, however, The Runaways is still a satisfactory little flick. Kristen Stewart is great, as always, and Michael Shannon is out the door, down the street, into your home and having sex with your mother as The Runaways' almost Nietzchian record producer. Dakota Fanning is reel purty but isn't asked to do much besides glower or look forlorn. The musical sequences are quite good and there are a couple of moments when writer/director Floria Sigismondi does an excellent job visually projecting what it's like to be inside the cyclone of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. The movie also touches on the sexism the group had to endure and combat, but only in the most clichéd and hackneyed of ways. As rock bio-pics go, there sure have been a lot worse than this.What keeps it from being any better is that Cherie Currie's story dominates the movie and it simply isn't that interesting. She's a 15 year old with looks and attitude who got plucked from obscurity to be the band's lead singer, couldn't handle the hard life of being a rock star and crashed back to reality. Joan Jett's tale of ambition and determination takes a decided back seat and the other members of The Runaways can be entirely described as "the jealous one", "the lesbian one" and "the one who barely has any lines and might as well be a mic stand". The best parts are when Shannon's Kim Fowley is completely blunt and ruthless in the molding of these girls young enough to be his daughters into icons of rock, but that largely disappears for the 2nd half of the film. The most intriguing part is how Cherie's older sister Marie (Riley Keough) transforms herself into a mirror image of her little sis. That image suggests so much but none of it is ever explored.If every member of the band had been given a fair share of the narrative and it had focused more on the struggles between The Runaways and Fowley and between them and the rest of the world, I can't help but think that would have been a much more compelling story. Especially because the look of the movie is outstanding in how it captures the zeitgeist of the 1970s. I'm not sure any character's appearance has better symbolized that era of cultural decadence and stylistic chaos than Fowley's.If you're a fan of this group, this genre or this time period, you'll probably enjoy The Runaways. Nobody else needs to rush out and watch it, but there's no reason anyone shouldn't give it a look.