The Runaways: Critic Reviews

The most entertaining thing about The Runaways...is that its writer-director, Floria Sigismondi, has a sixth sense for how the Runaways were bad-angel icons first and a rock & roll band second.

The movie may be a little too tame in the end, but at its best it is just wild enough.

Maybe The Runaways is Linson's way of showing that he can make a success of this subject, and I think he has done, with a film which shows how brutal and sexist rock'n'roll is.

If anything, it just makes you want to know more about Jett's back story and Currie's subsequent life.

While Jett and Currie emerge as blurry, half-formed characters, Shannon's Fowley brings the contradictions the Runaways embodied into sharp, biting focus.

Jett, Currie, and the others are teen outcasts in Me Generation Los Angeles, aching to break out of their lives. You can feel their frustration, their need to make an unholy racket.

The band's few hits, like "Cherry Bomb" and "Queens of Noise," are all over the soundtrack, but the music, much like the people who made it, feels like an afterthought.

Excess is abundant in photographer and music-video director Floria Sigismondi's energetic debut.

... the film breathlessly unreels snapshots of a trip that's so swift there's no stopping for deep-dish exploration, or even sufficient time for the band's 'noise' to work its black magic. It's an oddly old-fashioned movie...

In patches it's agreeably lurid, but it's otherwise ho-hum.

Its interest comes from Shannon's fierce and sadistic training scenes as Kim Fowley, and from the intrinsic qualities of the performances by Stewart and Fanning, who bring more to their characters than the script provides.

It's pungent and quick on its feet, capturing the clubs, the shag-heavy interiors and the Farrah-haired vibe of mid-1970s Los Angeles in look and spirit.

Making her feature debut, Sigismondi conjures up a cheapo New World Pictures vibe that's utterly persuasive.

There's something awfully literal about watching the group famous for the refrain "Neon angels on the road to ruin!" as just that. And not much more.

Aside from following the cliched (if real) storyline, The Runaways is plagued by something of a split personality, thanks to its two young stars.

The Runaways broke new ground. And if The Runaways doesn't, it's still a movie worth watching -- and listening to.

This movie hints at a really fascinating story but just barely scratches at its glittery surface.

A conventionally enjoyable making-and-breaking-of-the-band saga.

Amusing though it sometimes is, the closest thing the movie offers to a reason for its existence is the post-Runaways success of Jett.

A well-acted and vivid re-creation of a dark, downbeat era when "girls don't play electric guitar," and you had to be someone pretty tough and pretty special to try it.

Fanning and Stewart are the deserving stars of the film, nailing every last look and lick, holding their own even as Shannon savvily attempts to nick every scene.

Floria Sigismondi has created a movie that's more interesting than the band that it's about.

Sometimes mind-blowing power isn't available, and a rollercoaster ride of stardom and depravity will just have to do.

The beats the movie hits are predictable enough that, after a rousing, raunchy opening act, the story of the group's fast rise and spectacular flameout begins to feel like an exceptionally dirty-mouthed after-school special.

The three leads provide convincing performances, with Dakota Fanning being the standout.