Keeping The Cult Status Alive

Rating: 6/10 (13 December 2018)

Believe it or not, STAYING ALIVE, the sequel to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, is not a John Travolta film (and take it from someone who was there: people laughed really loud after the trailer would play in theaters)...
For better and mostly good-bad worse, it belongs entirely to writer/director Sylvester Stallone, rehashing the ROCKY storyline of a diamond in the rough fighting to survive and given a miraculous chance at quick fame (much like Stallone himself): Only here he's a dancer, not a boxer... and unlike the Oscar winning southpaw tale, it's a pretty bad movie/guilty pleasure, but fun as hell! Travolta struggles to make it from the streets to lead dancer in the cheesiest Broadway musical ever created, SATAN'S ALLEY (a title derived from Stallone's own PARADISE ALLEY), a cross between CATS and a surreal flu dream...
Playing the character he made famous in FEVER, Travolta's former Disco King Tony Manero charms his way into the bed of gorgeous Broadway star Finola Hughes, who turns the tables and uses him. And much like the SNF dance contest, the big budget musical is what everything leads to... resulting in the same kind of whiny idealism for the main character, taking his dancing much too seriously... But now we're skipping ahead...
There's a contrived overabundance of Tony getting his just-deserts i.e. the player getting played by this sly vixen, and his complaining gets tiresome. All the while he uses his loyal girlfriend played by Cynthia Rhodes, a cross between the classy Karen Lynn Gorney and a vulnerable Donna Pescow...
Rhode's Jackie just can't help but to love the handsome devil. And, like Rocky Balboa, our dancing hero, sculpted with mapped-out body muscles yet looking strangely gaunt, facially, strives for heights never thought possible: Tony, having "grown up," is now going for gold.
The Bee Gee's Soundtrack, unlike the catchy romps from the original, is full of breezy and forgettable pop tunes. Frank Stallone's muscular fanfare, Far From Over, captures the "drive" a whole lot better, serving as a victorious anthem much like Bill Conti's GONNA FLY NOW in ROCKY...
So if you like corny movies, STAYING ALIVE takes the cheesecake... And in many ways is even more entertaining than the original since it centers completely on Tony sans intrusion from an ex-priest brother, bickering parents (although mom provides a mellow cameo), or pointlessly plotted cronies: Like it or not, Travolta's the sole man of the hour... And the side-characters, including Steve Inwood as a temperamental Broadway director, are working hard to keep him ready and steady for opening night.
And now we'll end with some trivia... Yours truly was in the theater when this movie's trailer played... The audience roared with laughter when dated title showed up on the screen... So let's give Stallone a hand for such a risky venture...
Look out for the director's cameo, pictured below, while Tony walks down the streets of Manhattan... In one scene Sly's brother Frank, playing a guitarist for Jackie's band, is described by Tony as looking like a "demented paratrooper," which is writer Sly's own words describing his bro....
And last but not least but definitely the most obscure Easter Egg herein (decades before we used stupid catchphrases like Easter Eggs... or Cinefile): listen closely towards the end of the movie during the halfway point of the musical where, backstage, someone says: "Yo, Adrian... Showtime!"