Reaction & Review | Xanadu

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be checking out a musical from 1980. That movie is "Xanadu".

Now, there's a very specific reason why I wanted to review this movie. And no, it's not because of the slightly recent passing of the film's star, Olivia Newton-John. Though my condolences go out to her and her family, that is not the reason why I wanted to review this movie. In fact, I had put this movie on the schedule long before her passing occurred. So I was gonna review this movie anyways, regardless if she had passed away or not. It was sorta the same situation with another passing of an actress that had happened last year involving Philece Sampler. For those who don't know, Philece Sampler was a voice actress who was mostly known for voicing Mimi Tachikawa in the English dub of Digimon. She had also reprised her role for the "Digimon Adventure tri." series. And last year, about a month or two back when I was about to cover the "Digimon Adventure tri." movies for Reaction & Review, I had heard she suddenly passed away. I didn't mention Philece's passing when I covered those movies back then, because I didn't feel like it was really necessary to bring up at the time. And I didn't really want to exploit someone's death like that by mentioning her name, because it would just feel wrong to me. Now while I have mentioned Olivia Newton-John's passing here, I am not going to make that the sole basis of this review. I wanted to review this movie for my own reasons, and not because of what I just mentioned.

But anyway, speaking of which, there IS a reason why I wanted to review this movie. You see, years and years ago, I saw a clip of this movie on YouTube, and the clip involved one of the songs from the movie. And the scene itself was an entire animation sequence done by Don Bluth. Well, more specifically, his animation company. Yeah, somehow, Don Bluth had a hand in this movie, even if it was just for that sequence alone. And ever since I saw that clip, I wanted to see this movie, mostly just to find out the context behind that scene. I don't know if there IS going to be a context, but I am curious regardless.

Now, I have no idea if this movie is going to be any good, but I have not heard a lot of postive things about this movie. Most people I hear say that the movie is weird, it makes no sense, and that it completely sucks. I'm not totally sure about the songs themselves, but I am hoping that they are, at least, better than the previous musical that I covered, which was "Anna and the Apocalypse". Because that movie really sucked. At least, to me, it did. But anyway, I am hoping for the songs in this movie to be decent. Even if the film itself does indeed suck, I am hoping that the songs are going save this movie from completely sucking. But regardless, I still want to find something good out of this movie. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie, or it's songs, is any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Xanadu".

6 minutes later

So, we're up to our first song here, and it's...kinda crap. And the way we got to this song doesn't really make a ton of sense either, but I am hoping that the rest of movie is going to make a little bit more sense.

18 minutes later

All right, guys, this movie is not giving me much to work with. But I am going to say this, now that I've gotten plenty of chances to see our main character, Sonny, on screen. The acting from him is ridiculously wooden. Mind you, the acting from Gene Kelly, Olivia Newton-John, and everybody else has been really good so far, but Michael Beck's acting is kinda bringing this movie down a bit. And considering that he plays our main character, I'm probably gonna have to put up with his wooden acting for, almost, the next hour or so. I'm not totally sure if I'm gonna be able to salvage his acting, guys.

7 minutes later

Well, guys, I am able to say that, after over half an hour into the film, we finally got a really good song. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this song here from Gene Kelly and Oliva Newton-John is actually really good. But then again, seeing as how one of the singers is Gene Kelly, it's almost hard not to find a bad song with him in it. But that's just me.

8 minutes later

All right, I have a really stupid question that I'm not gonna get an answer to, but I am curious about something. I will say that this song here is really good and everything, but who the fuck is operating all of this shit? Like, who's operating the fog machine with the model ship nearby our two cast members? What about the rain water that came out of nowhere, along with the umbrellas? I'm only asking this, mainly because you would think that since this place is technically abandoned and not really suppose to be in use, you would have no one else there operating it. I guess, maybe, the only answer I can come up with is that Kira is the one doing this with magic, considering that's how she's been able to get around. I totally understand that this is all fucking trivial, and absolutely nobody would be thinking about this kind of bullshit, but it is something I am a little bit curious about.

11 minutes later

Guys, I'm really digging the mixture of both classical and rock music. Like, these are some REALLY catchy songs here. I didn't think it would actually be possible to combine two completely different genres of music like this, but it totally works here! I'm probably gonna have to download the sountrack at some point, because these songs are really good, so far.

7 minutes later

Well, guys, we're now up to the Don Bluth animated sequence. And now that I've finally gotten a chance to see this movie up to this point, I, kinda, now know the context for this sequence. It's, admittedly, sorta stupid. But I guess it does make some sense in a rather strange, and kinda stupid way. Actually...it doesn't really make much sense now that I'm thinking about it, but regardless, it's still cool that I'm getting to see the Don Bluth animation sequence in it's entirety here, so that's always a plus.

11 minutes later

You know, guys, if a movie ever started talking to me by mentioning my name, I would probably be a little bit freaked out by that. Come to think of it, I don't recall ANY instance of a movie talking to me. So yeah, if a movie ever started doing that to me, I would probably NEVER watch that particular movie again. That's just rather creepy.

9 minutes later

Guys, this will probably sound like I'm slow on the uptake, and I'm not a religious person as is, but no matter the source material, Zeus is a rather judgmental dick. I mean, I guess that IS pretty accurate to Greek Mythology. And hey, at least this thing is more accurate about it than the Disney version. So, I guess that's something.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Xanadu". And, um...gosh, that was "Xanadu". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Good God, where do I even begin? Um...I'm gonna be honest here, guys, this thing is gonna be a very tough movie for me to review. Because, similar to another musical I covered, which was "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure", there is a lot to like here. But there's also quite a number of questionable choices here that this movie makes.

Let's start off by talking about the writing. I think one of the biggest problems with turning a musical, like this one, into a movie is that you're not leaving a lot of story here to tell. In fact, I'm gonna be with you when I say this, there is BARELY any story here that is considered partially interesting. The most story we get out of this is when our main character, Sonny, is down on his luck as an artist and he thinks that there is no inspiration for him to continue. Mind you, it doesn't lead to any suicidal thoughts from him or anything, it's just that he doesn't have any real inspiration. And after he tears up one of his sketches, that somehow leads into a mural, which has a drawing of the 9 muses, coming to life. Yeah, it doesn't really make much sense, but just roll with it. And one of the muses, Kira, ends up skating in the park before bumping into Sonny, who she gives him a kiss. And this leads into him wanting to find out more about her, despite the fact he only just met her for about a few minutes at the time. It later ends up with the two of them getting together, and this leads into a problem that kinda stuck out at me a little late into the film. Well, two technically. First of all, our main character, Sonny, is incredibly bland and shallow. Part of that reason is due to his acting, which I'll get to later on. But the big thing that jumped out at me was when, at one point, Kira admits to Sonny that the only reason why she came to Earth was to make Xanadu a reality. And for those of you wondering about the title, the name comes from the roller-disco that Sonny and Danny open. And Kira was not suppose to fall in love with Sonny. I could go into detail about how this relationship seems to almost come out of nowhere, but I'm not gonna worry about that. So anyway, she was only suppose to let Xanadu happen, and not be in a relationship with a human. But the thing that kinda struck me as odd was that she DID fall in love with Sonny. Wouldn't that mean, then, that she should lose her powers as a muse because she broke the rules about not falling in love? I totally understand that I'm not an expert on Greek Mythology, and there's some kind of stupid explanation for it, but you would assume that if Kira fell in love, then her being a muse would be completely null and void, and that she would have to spend an eternity on Earth for breaking that rule. Again, I totally understand that I'm ignorant in Greek Mythology, but I figured that either she would have to spend eternity on Earth, or go through some sort of trials like Hercules did and find a way back home. But that's probably just me thinking WAY too deep into this story.

I want to go back to something I mentioned earlier, and this is gonna tie into a huge problem with this movie, which would have to be the pacing. Since this is a musical that was turned into a movie, I had a feeling, while watching this, that the pacing was gonna be an issue with this thing. And sure enough, that's exactly what happens here. A lot of the songs here take up quite a bit of time, and like I said, doesn't really leave much room here to tell it's story. One song I can think of, in particular, was the song I mentioned earlier that combined both classical music and rock music. And while that song was great, I did feel like it went on for a little TOO long, and it does slow the movie down quite a bit. I could also say the last 20 minutes or so is just musical number after musical number. And the story that we've been trying to follow just gets tossed to the wayside, because the movie really wanted to focus on it's music. Now there is a way that they could've mixed in both sides of the spectrum. There's a movie that was able to combine both writing and music at the same time, and it did so very well. That movie was called "Repo! The Genetic Opera". It was made by the same studio that also created the "Saw" movies, and the entire movie was, basically, a rock opera. And they were able to combine both the writing and it's songs into one medium and it totally worked. By the way, if you've never seen "Repo! The Genetic Opera", I would highly recommend it. It's a really awesome movie. But anyway, this movie could've taken a page from what "Repo! The Genertic Opera" did, and combine both the dialogue and the music into one medium as well. Now, I totally understand that you would have to go out of your way to write more original songs for an already overloaded musical, but the filmmakers still could've made that work in some way. Because since we have scenes that split the songs from the writing, and considering that there really isn't much writing here to begin with, it leaves a very shallow and, kinda, lifeless script in the process. Our characters are not all that developed really well. But then again, considering that we don't have a lot of story here, it would make sense that our characters are pretty bland to begin with. So yeah, the writing here definitely leaves a LOT to be desired.

That being said, as I mentioned earlier, there is a lot here to really like. Let's go straight into the acting. The acting, for the most part, is really good, with the one lone exception being Michael Beck as Sonny. I mentioned it earlier, but the acting from him is incredibly wooden. And unfortunately, it stays that way throughout the entire movie. But the strange thing about this is that I don't know if that's how he naturally sounds when acting, or if it was because the script he was given was kinda lifeless to begin with. I have no idea, but it was something that really bugged me as I was watching the film. But beyond him, the acting is really good from the entire cast. That includes Gene Kelly, Olivia Newton-John, the background singers and dancers. Everyone else looked like they were having a blast with this movie. And you know what? For a movie that had a really shallow script, everyone else, minus Michael Beck, was definitely giving it their all for this movie. So, big props to most of the cast here for definitely trying to make it work. You guys did an awesome job for what was given to you.

Special effects in this movie are absolutely phenomenal. This is some of the best-looking special effects that I have seen from a movie that came out in the 80's. And considering that I was watching it on DVD, which labels this version of the movie as the "Magical Edition", it looks even better. And I am amazed by how good the special effects were in this movie, especially for something that came out during that time. Costuming here is really good for all of the musical numbers. Makeup effects here are pretty good. Our sets here are really good, also. I may as well mention the animation, mainly for the Don Bluth sequence I brought up earlier. Well...guys, this was made by Don Bluth's studio at the time, and the animation looks absolutely fantastic. If I had to pick any kind of negative from it, though, I would say that Sonny's character design, at least when it comes to his face, looks kinda like shit. But that's honestly just me nitpicking there. And considering that this sequence was made a couple of years before "The Secret of NIMH", you could only imagine that the animation would get better from there.

Camerawork here is great, as is the sound-mix. Lighting here is also lit very well. And since I held off on talking about this until the end, let's finally talk about the music. The songs in this movie are fucking amazing. There were maybe, like, two or three songs here that kinda sucked. One of them I could mention is the first song in the movie, and that one was kinda shit. Another one has to do with the Gene Kelly sequence where he's trying on different outfits. And the song that played during the Don Bluth sequence also kinda sucked. But beyond that, every other song here was great. Special mention has to go the song called "Dancin". Which was the song that combined both classical and rock music. That song, for me, was the best song in the entire movie. Second place would have to go to the song Gene Kelly and Olivia-Newton John sang called "Whenver You're Away From Me". But, as I mentioned earlier, it is, partly, a Gene Kelly song, so it's almost bound to be good to begin with. Every other song, including the "Xanadu" theme, is also really good. In fact, this is what I really wanted from "Anna and the Apocalypse". Because if you'll recall my problem with that movie, the songs there were all incredibly forgetful, and I personally didn't remember ANY of the songs after I finished watching the movie. This movie, however, has a lot of catchy songs, and it's definitely something I'm probably gonna be listening to again at some point. I'm probably gonna have to either download the soundtrack or just find the songs off of YouTube and give them a listen there. But overall, guys, the music in this movie is fucking great for the most part.

So, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Xanadu"? Oh boy, um...how to recommend this one...? Well, if you just want to listen to the music, like I said, go find the soundtrack on YouTube or download it. Because there are a lot of songs in this movie that I'll guarantee you'll find something to like out of. But as for the movie itself...that's a rather tough one to nail down. I suppose, maybe, if you have a morbid curiosity, then sure. You can probably find this movie pretty cheap nowadays. However, I have to warn you that the story here is almost non-existent and doesn't really make much sense. I, personally, wouldn't call this a good movie, but if you want to watch it to see a more visual novel of the music, then go right ahead and check it out. You might actually like the goofy bullshit that goes on in this movie. But if you're just looking for a good story out of your musical, then you can easily skip this. As for myself, I hesitate to say that it completely sucks. It certainly is heavily flawed in the writing department, but I still ended up kinda enjoying it for the, mostly, awesome music. And as such, I'm probably gonna be holding on to this movie. It does have enough charm here to where I can overlook the nonsensical story and somewhat lifeless characters. And I stated earlier that I did want this movie to, at least, be good with it's music, even if the movie did suck. And while the movie does kinda sucks, it surpassed my expectations in the music department. So, I consider that a success. Now...seeing as how I mentioned "Repo! The Genetic Opera" earlier, I'm gonna go and watch that. Because I'm in the mood to watch another musical right now. So, I'm gonna go do that next, after I'm done putting this review together.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.