XANADU
I'll let you know something right now: I hate musicals. I really, really hate musicals and I hate musicals even more when they star Olivia Newton-John.
Xanadu is a musical that stars Olivia Newton-John. Can you guess what I thought about it? I was, and still am, probably the only human on the planet that doesn't like Grease. When I'm feeling really bad about myself I'll watch Grease again. But from what I can remember Olivia Newton-John-John was bland and uninteresting. Just like in Xanadu.
This exercise in tedium begins with a truly incomprehensible sequence where by a frustrated artist named Sonny (Michael Beck) tears up his latest creation. The pieces of his art float through the air until they come to rest in front of a mural depicting 9 women. Since this is a musical (and the weirdest things always happen in musicals) the women come to life and start dancing around while they're bodies are surrounded in strange colorful hellos (mostly pink ones). In the back a song plays. Olivia plays on of these women (named Kira), she scats around, kisses Sonny, and they scats away.
Now, keep in mind this story takes place in Los Angeles where women kiss men on the street every day. True, they're usually warring black spandex instead of pink cloth and roller-skates, but Sonny would have completely dismissed her if not for the fact that he sees her picture on an album cover he's suppose to paint (his job is to paint reproductions of album covers so they can be hung in store windows, exciting huh?). So Sonny spends some time chasing after Kira. On the way he meats Danny (Gene Kelly of all people), a somewhat depressed dude who use to play clarinet in the big band era (he keeps going on and on about the 40s) They become fast friends and Danny encourages Sonny to go after his roller-skate bedecked mystery chick, sighting that he once lost a lover. Such motivation.
Eventually Sonny finds her and the two fall in soppy, 20 something, early 80s love. Barf. She lives in the same run down club that is picture on the album. Sonny gets the crazy idea to build a club out of the place, and convinces Danny to supply him the cash. The 3 of them become partners and eventually build a club called (ta da!) Xanadu. What the hell "Xanadu" means is beyond me, but whatever.
Some plot, huh? Well that's not all. It turns out that Sonny and Kira can't fall in love because Kira is one of the 9 muses. For those of you who's knowledge of Greek mythology is restricted to old Captain Marvel comic books let me explain: the muses where 9 sisters that where suppose to provide the inspiration for poets, song writers, singers (like Danny) play writes and artists like Sonny. They're suppose to be the inspiration, they are not allowed to be sex toys. But, since all musicals have happy endings Kira and Sonny get to stay together as another nauseous song plays on. The End.
Okay, I'll be a bit man and admit that Xanadu doesn't totally suck. The key word is "totally". There are some good scenes. Two that I can remember. One is where an 80s rock band and a 40s swing band join forces. The other is. . .well, okay, one good scene.
Like all musicals this one has songs in it. Songs that aren't all that memorable. And, like most musicals, when they start the plot stops faster then a mack truck hitting a concrete wall. They don't help the plot in any way, they just cause the movie to run longer.
As to acting: Olivia Newton-John-John is bland and uninteresting. She has two emotions, happy and sad, and two facial expressions to go with them. Michael Beck on the other hand, has only one facial expression and no emotions that I could see. In fact, the only reason this movie scores as high as it does is because of Gene Kelly. The old genre actor still has the power to put in a decent performance. But he's the only good performance in the whole mess.
The rest of the movie is typical of any number of fantasy/musical movies of the late 70s/early 80s: lots of stuff happens that has nothing to do with the over all plot, animation is used in place of actual special effects, and every other actor, besides the ones mentioned above chews scenery.
And yet I find I can't hate Xanadu. Not because I see the potential for a good movie, but because this movie boast no truly hideous performances. The acting isn't disgusting, its just not there. If your a real fan of musicals you might like it. Everyone else can just ignore this movie as if it never existed.
RATING(OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)
REMEMBER, MUSICALS + OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN = STUPID.
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