Movie Review: Grease 2 (1982)

The law of diminishing returns dictates that most sequels will fail in their attempts to recapture the magic of the original, offering only a pale and unsatisfying imitation of what made the original film enjoyable in the first place. Grease 2 is no exception. It's a lazy cash-grab that can barely justify its own existence. The film isn't completely irredeemable, however, because it fleetingly captures some of the fun of the original Grease. Those moments are few and far between, but they're a welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale movie.

Grease 2 picks up a few years after the original, which saw all of its main characters graduate from Rydell High at the end. Therefore, almost no one from the original cast returns, which is an immediate warning sign that this will not be a good sequel. A few members of the original cast are back, but it's mostly just the school faculty members, characters so minor I wouldn't blame you if you didn't realize they had returned. Maybe there are a few diehard Eddie Deezen fans out there who will appreciate his few brief scenes. The only notable Grease alum present is DiDi Conn, returning to play Frenchy, one of the members of the original film's Pink Ladies clique. After dropping out of high school (and beauty school) in the first film, she's back to finish her degree to pursue a career in cosmetics. Nothing really comes of this and Frenchy remains relegated to a handful of inconsequential scenes. She's really only here to give a few expository lines of dialogue explaining who the new characters are.

The new lead couple this time consists of Stephanie (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Michael (Maxwell Caufield). Stephanie is the queen bee of the new iteration of the Pink Ladies, and Michael is the heretofore unmentioned cousin of Sandy, the protagonist of the previous Grease. Michael is a new student at Rydell, having recently moved to the U.S. from England. This is a bit baffling, considering that Sandy was from Australia in the first movie. Who knows, maybe she has family in other parts of the world. The more likely case is that the producers probably couldn't find any good Australian actors and opted for a Brit instead. Either way, it's a lazy way to connect this movie to the original.

The premise here is basically a retread of the original Grease but in reverse. In the first film, good-girl Sandy falls for Danny, the leader of the T-Birds, a bad-boy greaser gang. In the sequel, goody-two-shoes Michael falls for the bad-girl Stephanie. In the first film, Sandy befriends the seedy Pink Ladies clique while trying to woo Danny. In the sequel, Michael joins the ranks of the T-Birds while trying to woo Stephanie. The flip-flop is just different enough that the movie could hypothetically work. Unfortunately, the duo of Pfeiffer and Caufield just don't have convincing chemistry. Their romance doesn't feel genuine, it feels mandated by the script. Having a believable couple is important for a movie that centers on romance and falling in love, but that is not the case with this film.

Grease 2 also struggles to stand up to the original because of its music, or lack thereof. The first Grease was adapted from a theatrical production, and as such relies almost entirely on music to propel the narrative forward. Grease 2 features far fewer songs and relies more heavily on story than the first. The original succeeds in part because it understood that the sheer power of catchy, memorable music could power through any narrative shortcomings. The sequel seems to value more narrative moments than musical numbers, which is a detriment to the movie overall.

In Grease, the songs come at such a rapid pace that it makes the lack of plot or complex characters not as noticeable. It's a movie of style over substance, the emotional impact of the songs superseding traditional cinematic expectations of plot and character. With the sequel, the songs are few and far between, leaving plenty of time for it to sink in that there's not a whole lot of substance to the film. You start to notice smaller details, too, like how painfully obvious the lipsyncing is during the musical numbers.

To make matters worse, the music just isn't as inspired as the first film's. A few songs, like "Cool Rider", possess a theatrical, Jim Steinman-esque raucousness that almost makes them memorable. However, those songs are all in service of a bland romance, so they lack the necessary punch to stick in your head when the movie's over. There's a good reason that the original Grease has one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, while the sequel does not. To put it simply, the music in Grease 2 stinks.

Despite all of its flaws (and it has plenty of flaws), Grease 2 actually manages to get a few things right. If nothing else, the sequel accurately captures the tone of the original. Grease is a tawdry, tacky movie in the best way. It's campy and perverse, full of oversexed teens played by actors in their thirties, set in '50s but not really looking like the '50s. Grease 2 at least manages to preserve the original film's unconvincing period setting, the adults failing to pass for teenagers, and the inappropriate level of horniness. There's a musical number in Grease 2, "Reproduction", that's nothing but a single-entendre about sex. If the song had been better it might have been a classic, but at least the same sleazy spirit is there.

There's also one performance that stands out, Tab Hunter as the dorky substitute teacher, Mr. Stuart. Hunter looks like and seems to be channeling Christopher Reeve's performance as Clark Kent in the Superman movies. It's a confusing choice in a movie full of questionable decisions, but Hunter is sincerely goofy enough to rise above the wooden performances of his costars. It's a brief role, but it's a role that breaks up the tedium of the film anytime he shows up.

Grease 2 is not a good film, but it never had a chance. Following up a film as popular and beloved as Grease is not an easy task, and without the original cast returning, it was a sequel practically destined to fail. It's easy to write it off as a cheap cash-in on a successful film, but Grease 2 had potential. The role-reversal of the previous film could have worked if the chemistry between the two leads was convincing, and the music might have been better if it had been written by the original composers. Unfortunately, neither of those two things happened, so we're stuck with a movie that fails in almost every regard. But hey, at least we got a good Tab Hunter appearance out of it.