There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Blistering performances.

The Runaways is my all time favorite movie, based off of Cherie Currie the ex-lead singer of the runaways book called neon angel, of course it's a movie so there were some things in the movie that were not correct but the runaways movie captured the essence of the real runaways band. This movie stars amazing actors such as Kristen Stewart who plays Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning who plays Cherie Currie and Michael Shannon who plays Kim Fowley, they all out on great performances, especially Kristen she was really committed to the role. The Runaways was the very first all girl Rock band who were tough and rebellious and in the movie it really captured that, also people in the other reviews said some things about how besides Cherie and Joan the other members weren't included enough in this movie that is because lita ford the lead guitarist of the group refused to let them use her story, next is Sandy west, Sandy died in 2006 and couldn't really get much of her story without it coming from her and also Jackie Fox is a lawyer now and the crew for the runaways movie didn't want to take any chances also because the runaways changed bass players throughout. The Runaways is a great movie for Rock and roll lovers!

What does one say about a movie that's really good but could have been a great?First off. Why was it really good? Well because The Runaways were the first all female rock band that wrote their material and played their instruments. The fact they were charismatic eye candy was a bonus for us males - so God bless'em for that. That makes this an important movie.This type of genre tends to fall flat on its face, especially for musicians, when an actor is cast that can't play their respective instrument or mime the vocals. So when Joan Jett (played by the very gifted Kristen Stewart)is playing the guitar and singing, it appears authentic. Didn't hurt that Kristen resembles Joan Jett either.Dakota Fanning is another gifted actress. Only difference is she exudes a wholesomeness that should have banned her from playing the role of Cherie Currie. But she handled it like a true pro. Folks. we're talking," Sex, Drugs, Booze and Rock N Roll." Plus, she sings amazingly well on these tracks.Casting Elvis Presley's granddaughter as Cherie's twin sister Marie was a great choice. The role was small but gave her the opportunity to mix- it-up with the pros and shine.Now.How could it have been made great? Well,simple; more emphasis on the other band members, especially Joan Jett. The story line leaned too heavily on Cherie's family life leaving me wanting to know more about the other group members family life. I still don't know diddly-squat about Lita Ford's life. We actually get to see Sandy West's Mom's horrified reaction after Kim Fowley comes to their home. And as for Joan's family life? Well forget about it. Not a peep.And I don't recall the bass player, Robin, played by Alia Shawkat from the sitcom Arrested Development having any dialogue! We see they played in Japan. But did they play at CBGB's ? It desperately needed that kind of balance.It would also have been nice to show a photo of the real-life Runaways in 1976 that morphs into how they look today, just before the ending credits. Cliché? absolutely. Relevant? Very much so. BTW, the peeing on a guitar scene did happen according to Joan and the group it happened to was ( drum roll,please ) RUSH !As a final note, the commentary is not to be missed. It has Joan Jett, Kristen and Dakota dishing out morsels of interesting background info. It too is rated R because of Kristen's penchant for whimsical profanity

The Runaways were part of the hard rock revolution and were an all female group. The movie is the story of Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and how she created "The Runaways" with Kim Foley (Michael Shannon) as their manager. Along the way they recruit Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) to be the bands lead singer and face. This is a very realistic look at how drugs (alcohol included) was part of the bands daily life and eventually their downfall. Joan Jett continued after the Runaways disbanded and became a major force in hard rock music throughout the 70's and 80's and still performs today.The Runaways music is some of my favourite music of all time and in the movie Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart actually sing in the live music scenes. I am a fan of Dakota Fanning and Micheal Shannon, but I did not know too much about Kristen Stewart, who is a fine actress and I look forward to seeing more of her work. If you are a lover of hard rock, watch the movie and listen to the Runaways discography. I was thoroughly entertained by this movie.

Well, I completed my homework assignment of watching The Runaways. Can I go out and play now?The objective of the task a friend gave me was to see a different side of Kristen Stewart since I thought I hadn't see a movie with her in it yet – outside the Twilight series, that is. Turns out, yeah, I did see Jumper and Into the Wild, but I do not recall her in those. Here…you'd be blind not to notice her even while she's fairly mellow. As always, it appears.Now, I'm not a Joan Jett fan, though I do enjoy her music when it comes on. I'm so ignorant on the topic of her past or present, I thought it was just her and some backup chicks. I didn't know anything about "The Runaways" band, nor the sequel: "Joan Jett and the Blackhearts." (I guess I was right on my thoughts for that one.)Well, despite my ignorance and the fact this movie really wasn't about Joan, I enjoyed the ride of the girls wanting to develop a band from virtually nothing into sexy stardom. And they didn't waste any time jumping right into the destructive drug usage.Perhaps this movie was accurate, because not only was Joan Jett one of the major producers, she apparently was on set all the time pointing out the accuracies. If this is true, and I have no reason to suspect otherwise, it was a pretty dull ride with so little happening, the movie seemed to be stretched out as far as it could to make this a feature length. Again, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't the most "explosive" biography I've seen. (In fact, the original poster's tagline was: "It's 1975 and they're about to explode." Hardly.)But, it did have fairly decent acting all around with, surprisingly the best performance in a movie about an all-girl band was Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley. He was sure out there, but I thought he was above the rest. And the rest wasn't that bad: the two leads, Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie were very good…at looking melancholy all the time. Sure, that, again, might be accurate; these real life ladies might have been a bit of a couple of downers. I did believe in their performances, but they didn't grab me to care one way or another where they ended up.The soundtrack, of course, was killer and the decades old scenery believable. I would recommend this movie of the (sorta) rise, (sorta) fall and (sorta) reinvention of an all (sorta) kickass girls band – they really didn't see that badass, by the way.And, yeah, it was nice to see some range out of Stewart, even though in the two big rolls I've seen her in were sorrowful and downhearted rolls.