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Xanadu

  

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A wimpy remake of an already anaemic movie (the 1947 Rita Hayworth vehicle Down to Earth), this glitzy musical from 1980 improbably stars Olivia Newton-John as a heavenly muse sent here to help open a roller-derby disco. Gene Kelly is mixed up in this well-meaning but goofy effort to fuse nostalgia with late-70s glitter-ball trendiness, and he looks just plain silly. Directed by Robert Greenwald, the film doesn't even work as decent kitsch. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com read more.

Starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, directed by Robert Greenwald.
Released 28 June 2004.
Universal Pictures Video. PAL.
rrp £9.99. Our best price £3.94
 
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Kashif Ahmed, 22 Jul 2008 
    
Olivia Newton John's first picture after 'Grease' and all eyes were on the Australian beauty to equal what is, arguably, still the best movie musical ever made, needless to say...she didn't. For Olivia Neutron Bombed her movie career back into the Stone Age with Robert Greenwald's much maligned romantic fantasy; trashed upon release, though nursed back to health over time and now cherished as somewhat of a guilty pleasure by queens young & old, hopelessly devoted nostalgia fans and Olivia Newton John aficionados. Truth is, 'Xanadu' is such an unrelenting audio-visual onslaught, that you may just make it to the 93-minute mark without ever dwelling upon its resounding stupidity & lack of anything vaguely resembling a coherent storyline. Olivia plays Kira; an ethereal, all singing, all dancing, roller-skating muse caught up in an implausible love triangle with sensitive artiste Sonny (Edward Fox look-alike Michael Beck) and old-timer Danny Maguire (legendary dancing man Gene Kelly in his last role). Both guys seek to create a quasi 1940s-1970s club called 'Xanadu', and just like Kublai Khan's Mongolian Empire (who built the original, mystical ancient city of Xanadu) this movie's determined to take its audience by force, brute force; exercised in the form of one musical number after another, a dizzying array of neon SFX, ELO swing and bitter hatred of pace, character or story. That said, Olivia Newton John looks absolutely stunning and it's a bit of a shame that the period in which John Travolta and Olivia were in peak physical condition, both were saddled with making some of the worst movies ever committed to celluloid. Receives an extra star for Olivia Newton John's sparkling radiance / powerful singing voice, for being Gene Kelly's last throw of the dice and the presumed catalyst which expedited director Robert Greenwald's unexpected transformation from Hollywood hack to respected documentarian, whose work includes 'Outfoxed', three documentaries about Iraq, one on the 'Enron' scandal and a number of programmes dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties and freedom in America today. 'Xanadu' is a psychedelic episode that's impossible to hate, but so middle-of-the-road that I was almost run over. Camp classic.