Xanadu (1980).....existed as the collateral damage left over from the blockbuster success of 1978's "Grease", the musical that officially anointed Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John as American's Sweetheart.....
As a comparison, you could think of this movie as similar to the leftover radiation lingering in the air after the 1950's and 60's H-Bomb tests.....
We can say one thing in its favor......the movie helped hammer one of the last nails in the coffin of the mercifully brief Roller Disco fad that gripped the nation in the late 70's......and that death couldn't come soon enough......
In the midst of the embarrassing silliness of 'Xanadu', we could detect what the movie was attempting......a simple, sweet, practically Disney-fied musical fable about a struggling artist (Michael Beck (the embattled delinquent of "The Warriors")who falls head over heels for his muse......and by that we mean an actual, ethereal Greek mythology Muse (who else but Newton-John......on roller skates no less...)
A tale like this required a director with a lighter-than-air touch, a visual stylist who'd throw in enough razz-ma-tazz to make you put your brain on hold and embrace the fantasy..... (yes, we're thinking of people like Gene Kelly and his collaborator Stanely Donen)
The director it got, Robert Greenwald, possessed no such talents and the resulting film stays firmly earthbound throughout. His pokes the movie along at an indifferent pace (deadly for a musical) and his mediocre, journeyman TV-movie direction only serves to accentuate how dopey are the cartoon-like proceedings.
Amid the wreckage, there stands, in his final film appearance, the immortal icon of movie musicals, Gene Kelly himself. Ironically, he was 68 when he did 'Xanadu' and he's the only one in the film who looks comfortably at ease singing and dancing on roller skates.
Newton-John bravely attempts tap dancing with Kelly in a 1940's-inspired number while the hunky Beck tries to keep a safe distance from any musical stuff.
The movie clunked about and couldn't even benefit from its ear-candy array of fluffy pop songs from the Electric Light Orchestra, which specialized in rich, bouncy harmonies that even your grandmother could hum along to......(the soundtrack sold wildly, even as the movie crashed and burned at the box office....)
Judged a flaming bomb at the time of its release and years later spoofed in a successful Broadway musical, we found 'Xanadu' moderately amusing as a Guilty Pleasure from a bygone era that no one's especially nostalgic about. Maybe pre-teen girls might find it a hoot for slumber parties and anybody who's passionate about movie musicals might want to look in on it for Gene Kelly's film farewell.
Everybody else probably shouldn't waste time with it......1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2).
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