Xanadu

First of all, I really need to ask, WHAT ON EARTH WAS SO BAD ABOUT THIS MOVIE?!?!? This was quite simply the Moulin Rouge! of the 80's. The acting may have been a little cheezy, but it wasn't all that great in Moulin Rouge! either. People need to understand that this is a MUSICAL and musicals aren't necessarily known for their great acting performances. They are noted for their brilliant choreography, songs, and stage settings, which I felt both "Moulin Rouge!" and "Xanadu" contained. Moreover, the story in "Xanadu" wasn't all that incoherent and reminded me a lot of "Field of Dreams" when Kevin Costner is inspired by a voice from an invisible muse to build a baseball field. So, while some of the criticism of this film is justified, I feel much of it is not and it took way more of a beating than it should have. One has to remember that there have been many films made which were raked over the coals by critics, yet the films became enjoyed by many later on.

Although some might call this "Xanadon't" it has redeeming qualities. The music is the most redeeming. I've always liked ELO and their music carries this film.

Several movies of this type were made about the same time: "Roller Boogie", "Skatetown U.S.A.", etc. If you liked any of these you'll most likely like Xanadu.

This is one of those films you just have to watch and decide for yourself. As you can see just by what's been written here, opinions vary tremendously. And all are valid.

I gave this movie a 6 of 10 because I liked the music and sets.

Just try it. You may like it.

I was 12 when I saw this movie and loved it. I would dream of being a magically glowing roller skating being from another realm for a couple years after the movie. And that's the point of this comment. There is magic there for the taking if you're looking for some. But if you'd rather sit there with your pencil and steno pad, notating every intellectual criticism you can brainstorm; I'm sure you can come up with a lot.

You get to see Olivia skate and sing with Gene Kelly. There are some great songs by legendary pop band Electric Light Orchestra. There is some great music and a fun parallel universe available any time you want to put your pencil down.

XANADU is one of the most critically and commercially panned films in Hollywood history, a 'Nouveau Art' musical with Art Deco themes, a weirdly conceived animated interlude, and performances of such widely varying caliber that a viewer might wonder if the actors were all reading from the same script! But all that being said, I would like to offer a minority opinion, and say that I didn't find the film THAT terrible, and there are some aspects of it I actually enjoyed...

First and foremost, it offers the legendary Gene Kelly, in his last musical, as charming and wonderful as ever. As retired musician/businessman Danny McGuire, Kelly has the film's best moments, including a 'classic' song-and-dance scene with Olivia Newton-John and some silly but endearing 'post-disco' routines with the talented young dancers of the cast (including future CONAN star Sandahl Bergman). Seeing him on roller-skates again, leading everyone around the club he builds, to the music of the Electric Light Orchestra, makes one realize just how irreplaceable he is. Kelly could do it all, and with style!

The premise of the film, of a Muse coming from Olympus to inspire an artist, is far-fetched, but had been done on film several times in the past (ONE TOUCH OF VENUS, with Ava Gardner and Robert Walker, and DOWN TO EARTH, with Rita Hayworth, are the examples most often cited), and while Olivia Newton-John is oddly cast in the role, she tackles it gamely, with a smile and a wink, and isn't THAT bad. On the other hand, Michael Beck, best-known as the gang leader in cliched but powerful THE WARRIORS, is totally miscast as the artist she falls in love with. An actor with limited range and no singing or dancing talent, Beck lacks the charisma to pull off the role (one wonders why British pop star Cliff Richard, who voices Beck's animated duet with Newton-John, 'Suddenly', wasn't utilized to play the part).

While the film often veers off in bizarre directions, the 'Battle of the Bands' scene between popular 80s rockers, the Tubes, and a 'Tommy Dorsey/WWII'-style orchestra (as Beck and Kelly envision what the 'look' and 'sound' of their club, XANADU, should be), actually works, and is fun to watch. The entire score, by Barry De Vorzon and John Farrar, and Jeff Lynne (with ELO) is terrific (and made the soundtrack album a hit).

Sure, the ending is hokey, but it was also the same ending of ONE TOUCH OF VENUS and DOWN TO EARTH, so XANADU can't be totally faulted!

All in all, XANADU isn't the WORST film ever made, and if you give it a chance, you might find it a guilty pleasure!

A word of advice to any movie producer: if you have a big-budgeted production that you hope will become a hit, don't hire a director whose only previous experience is on TV. Director Robert Greenwald had directed only TV movie dramas before being assigned to this job, and it shows painfully. The camera either stays still or moves slowly and gracefully, when they should have flung it around and experimented with camera angles to create some oomph for the movie-going audience to feast upon. The only department that really tried here was the art department that created the arty scene-shifts with the accompanying sound effects, and the neon-colored special effects flashing around Kira and the other muses. Don Bluth also provided an animated sequence that offers the only magical moment in the whole film - makes you wish the whole movie had been made in the same style. That would have had so many advantages: the whole superficial story would have been easier to take for instance. Michael Beck would have had a movie career, and we would have been spared from watching "Oh-I'm-so-cute-but-so-poor-at-moving-my-legs-around" Olivia in a second film (or maybe not).

That said, I'm particularly ashamed to admit that I actually like "Xanadu". Very much. The music is the main reason - years before I had seen this film or even heard of it, I had heard "Magic" in the radio, and managed to get a two-minute snippet of it on tape, thinking it was an Abba song I hadn't heard before (no, I'm not an Abba fan - they have a few good songs, but I hate their albums). One day years later, "Xanadu" was on TV in the hotel room I stayed at during a holiday in Sweden - and I happened upon the very scene where "Magic" is heard, where Sonny meets Kira for the first time. Sadly, I couldn't stay to watch the rest, but I immediately wanted to catch the film from beginning to end. Now I have it on tape, and I regularly pop it on my VCR and enjoy the pretty photography, beautiful music, and the irresistibly corny 1980 kitsch "Xanadu" is so chock-full of. A guilty pleasure of the highest magnitude - after all, I'm a nostalgia freak and always will be one.