Grease 2 (1982)

Director: Patricia Birch

Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Maxwell Caulfield, Lorna Luft

Synopsis: A new group of students find love at Rydell High.

This one’s got cash-in written all over it. The original Grease was no work of art, but at least it was entertaining and fun. Its sequel has all the hallmarks of studio greed, with a minimal amount of money spent in the hope of the greatest possible return.   So we have mostly unfamiliar characters in familiar surroundings, and the only link to the original film – other than a few minor characters – is the fact that it’s the same story with the roles reversed.   This time it’s bland pretty-boy Maxwell Caulfield (once touted as the next big thing, he was last seen in the equally bland English soap Emmerdale) as the straight one and a young and impossibly gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer (The Age of Innocence, The Family) as the bad girl member of the T-Birds.

Pfeiffer’s character isn’t really bad.   She doesn’t even misbehave, which is perhaps an indicator of how much the makers of this movie have watered down the contents of the original.   The songs are dull and unmemorable, the humour is lame – and nobody realises Maxwell’s the enigmatic biker because he’s wearing goggles.   To top it all, the damn thing goes on forever, clocking in at around the two hour mark.

(Reviewed 14th October 2011)