"The Runaways" Movie Trailer Review

Movie Trailer Review

"The Runaways"

By our guest blogger, Michaela Zanello

The Runaways--predictors of punk and jailbait feminists, this pioneering, all-girl, teenage rock band of the 1970s is raw talent, provocation and revolution all rolled into the same spandex outfit. From writer and director Floria Sigismondi comes the rock n’ roll fueled biopic of the Runaways, chronicling the relationship between lead singer Cherie Currie, rhythm guitarist Joan Jett, and the band’s eccentric manager and co-creator Kim Fowley. “The Runaways” stars Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart and Michael Shannon.

Based on Cherie Currie’s memoirs, “The Runaways” relates the story of the band’s formation and rise to superstardom, focusing on the friendship between Currie (Fanning) and Joan Jett (Stewart). If you’ve ever seen a “Behind the Music” special on VH1, then the arising events concerning the Runaways dreams of superstardom will come as no surprise. Like so many groups before and after them, once the Runaways were formed an implosion of drug abuse and internal jealousies occurred which threatened to dissipate the band’s harmony. What makes the story of the Runaways unique is the way that this femme, punk band unfettered rock music from male hands and passed the mike and guitar picks over to the gals.

While following the friendship between Curie and Jett, the trailer for “The Runaways” sets up the film as primarily the story of ch-ch-ch-Cherie bomb. Using Fanning’s voice-over narration to guide the viewer through the film’s plot and thematic elements, the trailer opens with a shot of a rebellious Curie haphazardly snipping pieces of her platinum blond hair and brazenly applying vivacious red makeup to her face. The subsequent scenes of the trailer are provocatively Sapphic, ultra sultry, and come at you with visceral beats, playing like a lit stick of dynamite with its fuse sparking towards an explosion.

Stewart’s performance as Jett, while limited, is plucky and entirely mullet-terrific. Fanning also shows spirit and bravado in her role as Curie, the blond bomb-shell, yet it is a little unnerving watching the star of “Charlotte’s Web” prancing around scantily clad and clearly relishing her transition from child-star to jailbait vixen. With plenty of punk-rock princess attitude and a killer soundtrack, “The Runaways” appears to be the kind of film that will leave the viewer’s senses spectacularly fueled.

Below is the movie trailer for "The Runaways." What do you think?