Divisive, controversial and extremely camp

Rating: 6/10 (13 April 2020)

It's hard to describe just how much I hate musicals, but I can just about tolerate this relatively enjoyable adaptation. Grease is far from perfect and, for a 110-minute film, there isn't much of a storyline to speak of. A lot of the acting is pretty abysmal and there are some dubious messages about what it means and what it takes to be popular. There are also some highly sexist moments that are hard to accept regardless of when this movie was made. Despite all this, the gloriously camp performance of John Travolta and the legendary soundtrack are enough to make this an iconic classic for many viewers.
The film is very pretty, with the crisp colours of the 50s and a visually dazzling cast. Travolta is absolutely mesmerising as Danny Zuko and dominates every scene he is involved in. Olivia Newton-John is perfectly lovely although her acting is quite wooden and a little childish at times. I never felt much of a chemistry between these two characters, and the trajectory of their romance doesn't feel particularly believable. Stockard Channing aside, the rest of the cast are fairly useless and many scenes are quite painful to watch.
The music is amazing, just pure unadulterated fun. Four decades later and it sounds as fresh and charming as ever. There is an innocence about this music, this era and these characters which may be overidealistic but certainly creates a great feeling of nostalgia, even for those who never lived through this time period. I can understand the highly polarized reviews of Grease; it is both fresh yet dated, charming yet disturbing, edgy yet corny. A fascinating part of 20th century pop culture that makes you question if we have gone forward or backward as a society.