Garage Days: Critic Reviews

After spending 10 minutes in the company of such characters ... I began to wish that I was watching a Kenny G biopic instead.

[A] sweet, delectable rock 'n' roll comedy.

A cheery, cheeky, youthful lark that it trips over its Doc Martens in the first few scenes and never gets up.

It's clear that the band's internecine struggles -- even with their ante upped by infidelity, addiction, and pregnancy -- aren't going to provide enough grist for Proyas's visual mill.

Amiable but oddly amateurish.

The movie has a lot of affection for these scruffy wannabes, and I liked the fact that they were not arrogant, aggressive types, but sort of average, with reasonable values and ambitions.

This movie could only work if the jokes were funny, and writers David Warner and Michael Udesky don't deliver the goods.

A small-scale Australian musical with an appealing no-name cast whose charms are obscured by directorial self-indulgence.

A movie of shopworn riffs and borrowed noise, dressed up with considerable surface polish and glam production values.

The whole thing seems to fall victim to the failed sitcom syndrome.

In trying to create an air of libertine cool, Proyas succeeds in looking like someone who's trying too hard.

A mainstream endeavor tricked out as an indie, Garage Days gives us plenty to look at but no reason to care.

...While the narrative is slight and trite, it is also well-observed

A fantastically fun film even though it lacks lavish spectacle.

I wouldn't want to hang out with these cats and I certainly wouldn't want them practicing in my garage, it's bad enough to sit through their movie.

Its sense of fun is infectious enough that it doesn't make a huge difference that it's light on the story side. Coupled with the visual style and the top-notch choice of music, it makes for a fun, if lightweight, experience.

Proyas is relentless in his attempts to infuse the material with visual zip, and in doing so, he only exacerbates its flimsiness.