Staying Alive

Not good, but not as bad as it is made out to be.

Plot is thin, but the behind-the-scenes look at a Broadway dance show is interesting. Far too much time is spent on the actual show though, making you think that the whole movie may as well have been one big recording of a dance show.

Music is kind of cheesy, specially the music in the Broadway production.

Acting is so-so. Cynthia Rhodes gives probably the only convincing performance. John Travolta is his usual one-dimensional self and Finola Hughes is irritating.

Oh! So hokey! So bad! Tony Manero gets a job on the world's worst Broadway musical where two soap opera actresses catfight over his affections. Did I mention that all the music is by Frank Stallone? Of course this is because Sylvester Stallone directed, but Sly also keeps things in the family way by plopping Mama Jackie Stallone headbands on every friggin' chick in the film. The musical seems to involve a lot of dancers writhing about in "hell" (Drowning in dry ice, wearing Jackie headbands and listening to Frank, so there is at least a few scant shreds of reality fluttering here.), basting Tony in baby oil and tearing at his loincloth. This goes on non-stop for about the last 20 minutes, except for the moment when the director comes back waving his scarf at Tony and hollering "What is going on out there?" (Yeah, man, I was wondering too.) Still, if you're a fan of Travolta in his liberally greased and half-naked physical prime, you might derive a modicum of enjoyment from this. (I didn't. My mom did.) Great basket shot at the end, though.

I would give Staying Alive 1 star for actual goodness, and 10 stars for being in that rare category of movie that is so awful it's great. I will say that John Travolta is good dancer and his character is actually rather well portrayed here. But the film itself: ZOMG. The dance sequences are cheesy as hell. I have almost hurt myself from laughing so hard. It's like everyone in the movie lives in a world where cruise ship shows are considered the apex of entertainment. The script is a knock off of a knock off of a knock off of 42nd Street, with obvious rip-offs of All That Jazz. The choreographer character is straight out of the book of Hollywood clichés. The love triangle is as flimsy and transparent as used Saran wrap. The songs are all ridiculously over-earnest, especially the echo-laden 'Dance Close to the Fire' sequence. But I gotta say: watching this is pure joy. Pure 'oh my god I can't believe I'm watching this' guilty pleasure joy.

Seeing this film on TV again the other night made me wonder how amazing the human body is.... or more specifically John Travolta's body.

In Michael and Get Shorty he had a tremendous girth for the character's roles yet the films before and after Phenomenon and Broken arrow show a different size. and then we have the extreme end of the scale in this film. Sly Stallone trained Travolta for 3 months to get him into the rippling muscled fat free condition he displays in this film.

It just goes to show you that your fat levels aren't really THAT predetermined by birth and genetics afterall. All you have to to is be committed to attaining a the shape you want to be. Travolta can be slim, medium or large build, muscled, fat or average depending on the film role his ability in this regard is second only to Robert deNiro of raging Bull and Cape fear physique abilities.

Travolta wil never be out of work while he is able to mold himself into his characters. The charcter of Tony would not have been believeable in this film in any shape other than the one depicted by John Travolta in this film. he got it spot on --- in appearance, line delivery and overall feeling!

7/10

Staying Alive (1983)

** (out of 4)

Sylvester Stallone co-wrote and directed this sequel to Saturday NIGHT FEVER, which picks up five years after that film has Tony Manero (John Travolta) trying to make it as a chorus dancer on Broadway. His old time girlfriend Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes) puts up with his trouble but rich girl and star Laura (Finola Hughes) just uses him as she wants and soon Tony's going to have to decide on his future in both dancing and female. STAYING ALIVE is clearly a very, very bad movie but I think it crosses a line that makes it so campy that you can't help but have some fun with it. I'm really not sure what Stallone was thinking with his screenplay but it seems like he wanted to add in touches of ROCKY making Tony an underdog and this here just never works for a number of reasons. For starters, Tony is a complete jerk and his character just doesn't have the same appeal as Rocky. Another problem here is that the dialogue is so incredibly bad that you can't help but laugh at it as well as the so-called character development that happens. Not for a single second can you believe anything that the Tony character is going thru and especially his "growing up" scenes towards the end. Not only that but the entire music here is just really, really bad and we get too many scenes where we hear complete music numbers that just make your ears numb. This is especially true during the scenes of the Laura character in a bar singing. More bad stuff comes from the final stage production, which is just poorly shot and the entire thing just comes across as pure camp. Even Travolta is just missing a certain energy that was so clear in the original but I think this too can be blamed on the screenplay but that rawness is just missing here. I thought both Hughes and Rhodes were good in their parts but, again, the screenplay does very little for them. Those expecting anything nearly as good as Saturday NIGHT FEVER are going to be in for a major disappointment but if you go into the film expecting unintentional laughs and camp then you should at least be somewhat entertained.