Grease is the Worst

Rating: 2/10 (14 April 2007)

Post-"Welcome Back Cotter" and "Saturday Night Fever," John Travolta was the biggest star on Earth in 1978. The teenyboppers would have lined up around the block if someone had filmed Travolta picking his nose for two hours. Unfortunately, he did "Grease" instead.
"Grease" bears little relationship to the fun, modestly-scaled stage musical from which it takes its name. It looks a lot more like a late-70s ABC TV special with a gargantuan budget. All the elements that made ABC such a pandering, lowbrow success are present: a phony, sugar-coated portrait of the 1950s (a la "Laverne & Shirley"), smirking double-entendres (a la "Three's Company"), and, of course, Travolta. The musical numbers even look cadged from a variety show -- the camera is so static during the "Beauty School Dropout" number you'll think it's a colorized episode of Ed Sullivan. And thematically, it's all about the importance of being cool -- could there be a more TV-worthy message? Add in special guest appearances by a battalion of TV has-beens (poor Sid Caesar) and you have an insanely overwrought sweeps-month special splashed onto the silver screen for a filmgoing public which had its collective standard lowered by "Happy Days." The plot, such as it is, involves John Travolta falling in love with Olivia Newton-John, and the pair encountering a handful of easily overcome obstacles, the greatest of which seems to by Livvy's penchant for straight hair and cardigan sweaters. Travolta has made a career of looking comfortable in ridiculously contrived circumstances, and as Danny Zuko, he's perfectly believable belting out an angst-drenched torch song in front of an animated hot dog jumping into a bun. The lovely Miss Newton-John fares much worse. She can't act and she's a very limited singer (please note "Have You Never Been Mellow"), and up to this point she had survived on her sincerity and sweetness (again "Have You Never Been Mellow"). The transformation of her character Sandy from sap to sex goddess neatly parallels Olivia's not-wholly-successful attempt to do the same with her career: she spent the years after "Grease" trying to be sultry, kind of a pre-Madonna Madonna, and all she wound up with was a million-selling aerobics anthem ("Physical"). As for the supporting cast, it's a pretty mixed lot. There are bona fide talents like Stockard Channing, who plays Rizzo, leader of the girls' gang the Pink Ladies, and is far too old for the role but brings real sassiness to "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee" and real sadness to "There Are Worse Things I Could Do." And there are pieces of human scenery like Jeff Conaway, who plays "Kenickie," the world's least threatening thug. And there are slumming pros like Eve Arden and Joan Blondell, who add nostalgia appeal and look happy to be getting a paycheck. The songs, save for the obscenity-sprinkled "Greased Lightning," are pretty bland and sound like overproduced cover versions of 50's R&R, plus, the musical sequences in the film are utter yawns to a generation raised on the jump-cut editing of MTV. If your attention doesn't wander while Livvy is wandering around a back yard warbling the Connie Francis knockoff "Hopelessly Devoted To You," you have superhuman powers of concentration. So why do I know so much about this movie, which I dislike so much? Well, I was a tween in the late 70s, when pop culture was boring put flawlessly promoted, so people my age were force-fed bilge like "Grease" and swallowed it whole. (Please note, at least we gagged on "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band.")