What’s a “good-bad” movie? It’s the kind of flick that might have you cackling, hollering or groaning, one that is not necessarily great cinema but is great fun. It’s highly watchable even though — or maybe because — it’s memorably ridiculous. And it always has at least one element that pushes it into absurd territory.
Some sequels just seem destined to disappoint. Perhaps few more so than “Grease 2,” which despite — or because of? — the amount of money thrown at it (about twice the budget of the original), was never going to live up to the 1978 blockbuster that was a cultural phenomenon and critical darling.
Landing in theaters in June 1982, the same day as “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” it wilted at the box office. But it didn’t take too long for audiences to appreciate the movie in a different way, cementing “Grease 2” as a campy cult classic.
Michelle Pfeiffer, in her first lead role — a year and a half before her breakthrough in “Scarface” — stars as Stephanie Zinone, the disenchanted leader of the Pink Ladies, who’s bristling against the social mores of the early 1960s. Here, Pfeiffer gives us an early taste of her talent to be as sullen as she is stunning. And her gum acting is undeniable as she endlessly chomps, smacks and blows bubbles to express busyness, boredom, flirtation and frustration.
Pfeiffer plays opposite Maxwell Caulfield as the new guy Michael Carrington, cousin to Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John in “Grease”). Audiences are urged to perceive Michael as a total nerd despite him obviously being the coolest, hottest, best-dressed guy Rydell High School has ever seen. We never buy it.
In 2022, for its 40th anniversary, Caulfield, who long considered “Grease 2” an albatross around his neck, said in an interview that he had come to appreciate its cult status: “If you’re lucky enough to make one film that survives the test of time, what more could you ask for?”
What Makes It Good?
Boundless Energy and Enthusiasm
From its opening sequence — when dozens of Rydell’s students shimmy, twist, spin and leap through the air as they return for a new school year — “Grease 2” never lets up. There are sprawling, breathless and polished song-and-dance numbers at every turn.
“The movie often feels as if it’s overflowing its seams,” our critic put it at the time. In retrospect, that’s the brilliance of “Grease 2,” which was the feature directorial debut for Patricia Birch, who choreographed “Grease” for both stage and screen, spent years staging dance numbers on “Saturday Night Live” and directed music videos including Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors.”
Amid the delicious hullabaloo are a handful of standout performances that also help give “Grease 2” a distinct identity: namely Paulette, a Marilyn Monroe wannabe played by Lorna Luft, and her little sister Dolores, played by a young Pamela Adlon.
What Makes It Bad?
Not an Edge in Sight
When considering how “Grease 2” skews cringe-y in a bad way, several moments come to mind.
There’s the “Do It for Our Country” number, in which a T-Bird locks his Pink Lady in a bomb shelter, fakes a nuclear attack and exploits her patriotism to trick her into having sex (he fails); the dreary fever-dream ballad “(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time,” in which Stephanie and Michael appear to have been spray-painted silver; and the culturally insensitive luau scene.
But what really pushes this sequel further from “Grease” territory and closer to “High School Musical” is that the T-Birds have no edge whatsoever.
In the original “Grease,” members of greaser gang are convincing as outsiders who have seen too much, delivering angst and rebellion behind all the belting and hand-jiving.
In “Grease 2,” the T-Birds, led by Adrian Zmed as the unserious chauvinist Johnny Nogerelli, are comically dopey and nonthreatening. The most rebellious thing they do? Go bowling.
What Makes It Good-Bad?
One Long Corny, Horny Innuendo
Since watching this movie in reruns on TV as a girl, I’m incapable of hearing the word “reproduction” like a normal person. Instead it will forever play in my head as “Re-Pro-Duc-Tion,” with visions of hormonal teenagers — who, in the grand tradition of “Grease,” mostly look about 35 years old — bounding around a biology classroom “pollinating” one another.
Ditto for my associations with motorcycle riding (“a cool, cool, cool, cool rider”) and bowling (“we’re gonna score, score, score, score, score tonight”), a scene second only to “The Big Lebowski” in onscreen celebrations of the sport.
On the “SmartLess” podcast last year, Pfeiffer chatted about “Grease 2,” which the host Sean Hayes called one of his favorite movies. Pfeiffer, now 67, shared that she, like most fans, has not forgotten that frenetic spectacle among the lanes. “I still have my bowling ball,” she said.
Maya Salam is an editor and reporter, focusing primarily on pop culture across genres.
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