Review: "Grease 2" is a Sequel with Something to Offer, Though Not Much Else

Scene from Grease 2

Everyone knows Grease. It's your mother's favorite movie musical and the way that she draws out of "Summer Lovin'" likely makes you cringe every time. Yes, the 1978 juggernaut is one of those cultural landmarks that hasn't gone away and remains one of the defining reasons that John Travolta is still revered. How could it not be? The songs are catchy and you've been hand-jiving every day since. The film's gotten Oscar-nominations, won over hearts, and has many stage adaptations to prove just how popular Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson's story truly was. The only thing that it didn't quite do right was making a sequel. Four years later, a largely new cast of characters came to Rydell High to have their shot at the glory. It didn't quite strike lightning in a bottle, though it had enough acne-layered dialogue to make a stimulant. The good news is is that the film isn't a total failure, though Grease 2 is ironically at its best when it doesn't try to be a sequel.

There's something immediately disorienting about Grease 2, which opens on the first day of school as students are getting off the bus. "Back to School Again" doesn't sound like a Grease song. No, it's a rock song that feels more from 10-15 years after the film's 1961 setting. It's your typical audacious setpiece. It has to introduce the massive cast while performing elaborate choreography. We get the Pink Ladies set to that cool guitar. There are the antagonists who seek to do no more than prank people. Even Frenchy (Didi Conn) is back to get some studies after failing beauty school. The thing is that the scene has a lot of energy and feels like a stock version of the cool, rebellious school song that would work if this was a 70's movie. Instead, it's a long number that has a lot of promising energy that just dwindles the longer they sing. After seven minutes, even the audience would wish that they stop dancing and just go back to school already.

It should be noted that, beyond the soundtrack, the direction is actually spectacular. Director Patricia Birch frames the dance numbers to perfectly emphasize physical comedic moments and soak in the cheesiness of Goose McKenzie's (Christopher McDonald) performance. Whenever the film is allowed to perform, it finds a piece of its heart. In the film's second big number "Score Tonight" (the first of many songs centered around hanky panky), Birch shoots a bowling alley in such breathtaking fashion. It's all corny, but the angles pop with a life to them that makes the audience want these hormonal teens to, ahem, score tonight. With a game cast willing to perform such goofball songs, the film sometimes transcends its inadequacies and becomes a perfect and goofy tribute to teenage love. Unlike Grease, this teenage love is clearly still going through puberty and is way too hormonal for anyone's good. The film's lack of restraint on sexual desires through song is downright admirable, especially since it's the longest game of foreplay in cinematic history. Only a fraction of the people from "Score Tonight" actually scores tonight, which seems fair.

It helps that Michelle Pfeiffer's Stephanie is one of the bright spots in this. Whereas Sandy seemed too innocent, Stephanie looks like she'd have a switchblade on her skirt to fight anyone she hates. In fact, Rydell High has gone downhill since Zuko graduated. Everyone is running around and performing morally questionable acts. Is the school in a poor part of town? Given the number of bikers and hoodlums around, the answer is yes. It makes sense then why Stephanie is so tough, making the Pink Ladies a solitary force of cool. In fact, her songs direct Grease 2 into a more interesting film. "Cool Rider" is a rock ballad about the mysterious bad boy that she's in love with. If the other songs sound out of place on this soundtrack, just know that the band plays the song as if it's a Pat Benatar b-side. It's rocking and so full of passion. It makes you wish that this film was more embracing of the 70's rebellion it so clearly has at its heart. Stephanie never stops being a rebel out of time, and it makes the film more fascinating.

Which is the biggest issue of Grease 2. Despite "Cool Rider" feeling out of place, it's a genuine highlight to the film. Everything that is the manic opposite of Grease works here. Maybe it started as a satire of the 1978 classic but got studio notes that the soundtrack needed to have more doo-wop. Which is a shame because the film's careless attitude is actually charming and saves the painful slapstick and sexual innuendos that build throughout the film. Grease 2 comes close to being a charm because of its discordant soundtrack. Then 50's throwback like "Reproduction" show up and perfectly explain why this film gets such a bad rap. Like "Score Tonight," it's about hanky panky. However, its doo-wop satire mixed with sexual innuendos is painful in how it panders to the audience it thinks is interested in Grease 2. What the film really needed to do is just be a wild, uncombed film that pays little respect in the way of continuity. By trying to button up, it reflects all of its weaknesses.

The love story is also unfortunately too conventional and lacking anything interesting. Stephanie remains a compelling figure, but even her romance is far less interesting than Danny and Sandy. There's no fulfilling moment to really be taken from the film. The film's ending is set up to be a different version of the carnival, but it just becomes a scene full of wacky pratfalls that only drag on the film. There's not a lot of character development in this and the hijinks do get wearisome at times from Goose. This is a script that lacks confidence in part because it knows it has to entertain no matter what. By doing that, the film becomes cynical and impersonal, leaving behind a film that never quite becomes much of anything. Still, the film's choice to end with "We'll Be Together" (this film's, cleverly, "We Go Together") is an odd one. It's supposed to be a great loving ensemble number but instead comes across as a braindead cult singing together some horrifying truth to their brainwashed leaders. These teenagers' lives feel over before they really got going.

Grease 2 was never going to be on par with the original. Still, its reputation as one of the worst sequels is one that's hard to ignore. It hits all of the wrong marks in ways that eventually tip into just being boring. However, that is to ignore a more interesting film that Birch could've made. She's a competent director and makes the dance numbers (the highlights) pop with great angles and framing. What could've helped the whole affair as if it just gave up on being a Grease sequel and embrace the absurdity of its premise? Live up the fact that "Cool Rider" sounds like a Pat Benatar number. Play up how goofy numbers like "Score Tonight" are while dropping the numbers that are clearly done as bad punchlines ("Reproduction"). It's hard to salvage the film entirely, but what this film needed was to be sloppier, full of something joyous and maybe even downright confusing. Maybe Pfeiffer wouldn't have saved the film even then, but to ignore what works in the film is a shame. There's no moment here that surpasses Grease, but neither is it worth totally forgetting as the hormonal, accident-prone musical that is.