Grease 2

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Grease 2

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Patricia Birch
Produced by Robert Stigwood
Allan Carr
Written by Ken Finkleman
Starring Maxwell Caulfield
Michelle Pfeiffer
Adrian Zmed
Lorna Luft
Music by Louis St. Louis
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 11, 1982
Running time 115 min.
Country Flag of the United States
Language English
Budget $13.2 million
Gross revenue Domestic
$11,608,405
Foreign
$3,563,071
Worldwide
$15,171,476
Preceded by Grease
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Grease 2 is the 1982 sequel to the 1978 smash hit Grease. The movie was strongly criticized by many as derivative of the original, and the film did poorly at the box office. In recent years, it has attained a cult following. It has surfaced on cable TV channels such as VH1 (which has shown it on their show Movies That Rock,), ABC Family, and Bravo.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The movie starts in the fall (autumn) of 1961 (two years after the original) with a new group of students who are members of both the T-Birds, headed by Johnny Nogerelli (Adrian Zmed), and the Pink Ladies, headed by Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer). He wants to keep dating her though her feelings for him are no longer there.

Meanwhile, Michael (Maxwell Caulfield), an exchange student from England arrives. He is the cousin of Sandy Olsson, the character played by Olivia Newton-John in the first movie. Michael asks Stephanie out, but she does not feel like going out with grade-worried, good student Michael. Stephanie tells Michael she would like to date someone with a motorcycle, a "Cool Rider."

Michael starts doing the T-Birds' homework for money, so he can buy his own bike and impress Stephanie.

A fight ensues between the T-Birds and their rivals, the Cycle Lords (headed by Balmudo Dennis C. Stewart, who had played the leader of the Scorpions gang from the original movie) after a game of ten-pin bowling. As the T-Birds are being beaten, a mysterious biker emerges and beats the Cycle Lords, embarrassing them and conquering Stephanie along the way. Now Michael has a dilemma: either keep on going as the mysterious biker, or take the risk of telling Stephanie that he is the biker who has her so impressed and maybe lose her forever.

Johnny is jealous of Stephanie and the Mysterious Biker (Michael). He vows to retaliate against the biker, threatening to Stephanie that he will hurt him the next time he sees him.

At the June Moon Talent Contest (as summer graduation 1962 approaches), the T-Birds chase the mysterious biker into a construction site ("Dead Man's Curve"), from where he is forced to jump into the night. The T-Birds look around to try to find their victim. Everyone assumes he has died even though there is no real evidence to support the fact, and Stephanie is devastated. Later during the talent show, Stephanie "spaces out" (possibly due to grief) and turns up singing "Love Will Turn Back the Hands of Time" in the middle of the Calendar Girls' (Pink Ladies') performance. This appears to the audience to be a solo, but to Stephanie, it is a duet with her recently lost love, the mysterious biker, who now seems to be in Biker Heaven.

Johnny and Stephanie are crowned king and queen of the talent show. At the Rock-a-Hula Luau the next day, however, the Cycle Lords reappear, threatening to destroy everything within sight. Out of nowhere, the mystery biker reappears, to Stephanie's relief and happiness. He finally reveals himself as Michael.

While Stephanie is shocked, she also realizes at that moment that the man she had loved all along was Michael, so she goes over to him and expresses her love to him with a long, passionate kiss and soon begin to slow dance to "We'll Be Together". Johnny was shocked too. Admiring Michael for the way in which he had beaten their arch-rivals the Cycle Lords twice, he decides to make Michael a member of the T-Birds by handing him a T-Bird jacket. The film concludes with graduation and poses for the yearbook (similarly to the first movie).

[edit] Cast

[edit] Musical numbers

  1. "Back to School Again" - The Kids feat. The Four Tops
  2. "Score Tonight" - Cast
  3. "Brad" - Twin Sorority Girls
  4. "Cool Rider" - Stephanie
  5. "Reproduction" - Mr. Stuart and the Kids
  6. "Do It for Our Country" - Louis and Sharon
  7. "Who's That Guy?" - The T-Birds, the Pink Ladies, the Cycle Lords, and Kids
  8. "Prowlin'" - The T-Birds
  9. "Charades" - Michael
  10. "Girl for All Seasons" - The Pink Ladies
  11. "Love Will Turn Back the Hands of Time" - Stephanie and Michael
  12. "Rock-a-Hula Luau (Summer is Coming)" - Cast
  13. "We'll Be Together" - Stephanie, Michael, and Cast

[edit] Musicians

  • Guitars: Tim May
  • Bass: Andy Muson
  • Drums: Denny Seiwell
  • Keyboards: Louis St. Louis
Recorded at Evergreen Recording Studios, Burbank by Murray McFadden and Gary Luchs

[edit] Criticism

Grease 2 was considered a flop to critics and audience members. It did not live up to the hype as the previous movie had. Along with criticism, most of the songs that were sung such as Score Tonight, Do It For Your Country and Reproduction did not connect with the storyline at all. The most significant milestone for which this movie would be remembered was that it was Michelle Pfeiffer's first major role. While the music was catchy, the songs did not reflect the times in which the movie was set as its predecessor did. Grease brought a wave of nostalgia for 1950s music and featured some old standards sung by Sha Na Na. Grease 2 had no songs from the early 1960s, except perhaps for a strain of "Our Day Will Come" playing on a radio in the Bowl-A-Rama.

[edit] Box Office and Business

Grease 2 earned just over $15 million worldwide. Part of this failure can be attributed to the fact that it opened in the same weekend as the blockbuster E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

[edit] Cult Status

Grease 2 is still considered by a small following as better than the original. Many who like Grease 2 say this is because the lead cast of Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer gave credible performances considering their young age and that it is more sentimental than Grease. There is also a nostalgia attached to the film. While many remain loyal to the original, it has attained cult status when seen as a supplement rather than a rival to it.

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • When Michael attempts to confess that he is the "Cool Rider" to Stephanie, he asks her "Ever read a Superman comic?" By saying that line, Michael not only gives away his identity but also reveals that the film parallels the Superman myths. Like in "Superman," the film tells the tale of an awkward, socially inept but good hearted guy (Michael) falling for a stubborn woman (Stephanie) who is nice to him, but does not give him a second thought. The guy then proceeds to sweep her off her feet in his more heroic, daring persona. Meanwhile, Stephanie, like Lois Lane, begins to fall for Michael himself, seeing him for the good natured and honest person that he is. Finally, when he reveals his true identity to her at the end, she reveals that she loved Michael, not his "Cool Rider" alter ego all along, paralleling Lois Lane falling in love with Clark Kent for who he is as a person, not his alter ego.
  • Although the connection was never acknowledged in the movie, the character of Johnny was originally intended to be the cousin of John Travolta’s Danny. But with the character of Michael being the cousin of Sandy from the first film, the writers thought that there were too many similarities.
  • In the scene at the luau when the Cycle Lords raid the celebration, Michael's goggles switch up from clear to shaded. This may be due to the fact that the scene was shot at night and in order to do some of the minor stunts the goggles had to have been seen out of easily.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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