Xanadu fails both as musical, film
“Xanadu” is full of flash, sparkle and splash, but it won’t carry your imagination much farther than the concession stand.
It’s not that Olivia Newton-John, who plays Kira (the Muse), can’t sing. And it’s not that the music isn’t pretty although none of the songs is nearly as good as the widely-played “Magic.” It’s just that this film does not hold together.
“Xanadu” attempts to imitate the kind of Hollywood musical that led to the fine retrospectives, “That’s Entertainment” and “That’s Entertainment - Part 2,” which appeared a few years ago.
Why else would the producer have lured Gene Kelly into this morass?
But having Gene Kelly in a film does not make it a musical. It doesn’t even make it a film.
There are scenes in which Olivia sings that are reminiscent of those cheap montage versions of TV’s “Saturday Night Special” in which music is provided via tapes of artists’ past performances in lieu of live acts.
The color, the Disney-copy animation segments, all the funky modern life surfaces just can’t bring enough life to the film.
The story is weak because the people we most expect to be real don’t seem to be. Olivia plays a muse come down from Zeus who inspires a young artist (Michael Beck) to reach out and express himself. But she’s probably the most wooden muse ever imagined, and he’s not any better.
That he finds his expression in decorating a disco is improbable, but no big problem. The most difficult pill to swallow is that we’re to believe Olivia is inspiring.
Sorry. Pretty she may be, but she has the inspiration potential of Spam. Gene Kelly is the only bright spot in the film. While his dance sequences lack the natural spontaneity of those he did as a younger man, they remind us that talent, even physical talent, dies hard.
Kelly still moves smoothly and gracefully, with an artist’s sense of timing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t rub off on the movie.
“Xanadu” is to great films and entertainment what a college textbook is to Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.”
By David Behrman