Inexplicable

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2003)

Why THIS? Why is THIS, of all musicals, so popular?
And why was THIS film re-released all over the world - in mainstream cinemas that were unwilling to touch even "Apocaypse Now Redux", no less - rather than some other musical of the 1970s? (I presume "Grease" appeals primarily to people for whom cinematic history begins in the 1970s, otherwise the question of why not some other musical becomes even more perplexing.) Why not "Scrooge"? "Fiddler on the Roof"? "Jesus Christ Superstar"? "The Slipper and the Rose"? I'll admit I haven't seen those last two, but that's partly the point - I'd LIKE to see them, whereas "Grease" is the kind of thing I watch either because of a compulsive behaviour disorder or out of duty, to see if this time around I'll get to find out what makes it so popular.
No luck so far. I'll admit it's mediocre, no worse, but it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. In the course of the whole we-made-it-up-as-we-went-along narrative none of the characters, with the possible exception of two of the Pink Ladies, demonstrates that he or she has a soul, or any of the standard mechanics that make up a human being: beliefs, desires, passions, and so forth. The shallowness goes beyond the fact that the characters are shallow. The characters aren't even really THERE; the film comes across as a circus, a revue, something to enable the songs to be strung together. Each song, considered by itself, sounds as though it's expressing something (which is why the early songs, particularly "Summer Love", work best), but this usually turns out to have been an illusion. The unpleasant undercurrent of cruelty is probably accidental. The aggressive barrage of sexual references (it might have come across as playful, but it doesn't) probably isn't, although I'm amused at all the people who pride themselves on being able to play Freud with "Greased Lightning", almost the only five-minute sequence that ISN'T sexual.
Someone here said, of "Grease", that it dates from the era when people knew how to make musicals, when the song-and-dance routines exhibited real performing talent and energy. And so it does; but it comes from the very end of that era. It's the dying gasp. Vey often we can see THAT the performers are energetic, but a sustained display never quite makes it onto the screen. Part of the problem is sonic. The songs, never the best, have been shockingly recorded; listen to "Sandra Dee" with your eyes shut, and you can't fail to notice that the words sound thin and the music even thinner, and the voices in "Greased Lightning" (which has been ineptly staged) vanish into no particular musical texture even if you keep your eyes open and TRY not to notice.