Rating: 
Summary: Really, really bad
Review: I tried to like this movie but it just didn't work. The hour and a half run time seemed like it would never end. Worse than that, I couldn't even enjoy the picture as being admittedly campy! It was absolutely terrible. There is one good thing about Xanadu: Gene Kelly. He was the only reason that I was able to finish this movie without knocking myself out.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Music But.....
Review: ... In what started out to be a promising film turned into one of the worst disasters ever put to celluloid.
It's the result of too many cooks in the kitchen, or too many ingredients in the pot. To top it off, Xanadu's script is perhaps the most ... ever written.
At least the music is terrific. The visuals sometimes measure up to the music but not too often. The best sequence is Don Bluth's animation in 'Don't Walk Away' which makes the rest of the picture look really bad.
If you're looking to take a nap, this is the film for you!
Try to forget about the bad acting, mediocre writing, ... choreography and non existent direction. Better yet, buy the CD and forget about this turkey all together!
Rating: 
Summary: Love it
Review: My favorite movie of all time. I absolutely LOVE it !!
Rating:
Summary: xanadu - a childhood memory
Review: i remember watching this film over and over when i was about 5 years old...i loved it! the thing is, that i haven't seen it since and so i feel it is perhaps time i saw it again, seeing as i am now 21! the music alone brings back such great memories; and thus i conclude that it is a must see for anyone - i am giving it a 5 star rating based on the 16 year old memories that i have, so hopefully it will live up to these high expectations when i see it again...soon i hope.
Rating: 
Summary: Guilty Pleasures
Review: This movie brings back tremendous memories for me, it came out in the theaters back in the early 80's when most of us were young enough not to be so nitpicky about movies and could really get down to enjoying the film for what it was. You'll see people who are dissing this film and those people are reviewing it based on how they feel about it now from their lofty "I'm an adult and this movie made me just say PUH-LEASE!" mentalities. Heck, let's face it. Anyone who remembers the 80's at all is going to love this movie. You might not want to admit you love it, but you will sit down with it when nobody is home and get your legwarmers out and your popcorn and really enjoy it. It's like driving a Bug. Fun to ride in but you don't want to be seen in it. LOL Stop waiting for this movie to be shown late nights on TNT and buy the damn video already. You know you want to. LOL
Rating:
Summary: Lighthearted and Fun
Review: I really enjoyed this film and the music is lovely. Of course it is "all 80's" with the roller skates et al. Those who criticized Gene Kelly's dancing, must remember that he was 68 years old when this film was made. Personally, I think he performed some pretty nifty dance steps, which most of us who are 30 years younger couldn't do! :-) Although not his best role, his acting was just fine. I found this film to be entertaining with an interesting story line (if not somewhat complicated due to the supernatural theme). Certainly it is Olivia Newton-John at her best.
Rating:
Summary: XANADU your neon lights will shine!
Review: Coelridge wrote, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree...," but Coelridge's opium-fueled vision of a celestial palace of pleasure is transformed by the producers of this monumental work of bad taste into a sleazy roller-disco joint. XANADU deserves its reputation as one of the worst films ever made, and then some. Along with Allan Carr's big-budget disaster, CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC, XANADU accomplished the final destruction of the Hollywood musical as a viable form of entertainment and drove the last nail into the coffin of the 1970's. XANADU unquestionably introduced the look of the 1980's: its mind-boggling production and costume design relies on asymmetry, neon and fluorescent colors, leg warmers, and a whole lot of hairspray. It also exploits the 1940's nostalgia that appeared in a host of projects from the 1979-1982 period, from Spielberg's 1941 to BLADE RUNNER to BODY HEAT and Ronald Reagan's election. ALthough the film's designers try desperately to harmonize the styles of these two eras, they fail miserably and succeed in producing an artistic and aesthetic mess that literally assaults the eye with its incoherence. And then there's the plot. Basically, Olivia Newton-John (henceforth referred to as "ONJ")skates her way through a series of run-down LA locations while teasing square-jawed scion Michael Beck. It turns out that ONJ is really Terpsichore, one of the Nine Greek Muses, and she has returned to earth apparently for the sole purpose of bringing roller-disco to the masses in an act of Dionysian grace. Along the way, Beck picks up Gene Kelly on Venice Boulevard. The men strike up a father-son relationship that is touched by hints of incest: Kelly asks Beck to become his "partner," exclaiming that it will be, "just like being married except for the fun part!" Kelly was inspired to heights of musical abandon decades ago through his love for ONJ, who was his band's singer in another earthly manifestation. Kelly seems briefly nonplussed to find that Beck's mysterious love is a dead ringer for the girl he loved 35 years earlier, but he quickly gets over it in the frenzy of bringing Xanadu to life. Neither man questions the fact that ONJ literally materializes before their eyes and then vanishes, and they seem to regard ONJ's feats of teleportation as pretty typical for a spaced-out Venice Beach roller bunny. Meanwhile, ONJ and Beck decide that they are in love during their 'Suddenly' roller-disco duet, which involves watching the two of them make coy faces at one another while they try not to skate into the revolving walls. Another charming interlude takes us to the wonderful world of Disney, in which an animated ONJ and Beck make coy faces at one another while being transformed into goldfish and birds (ONJ's female canary sports her trademark leg-warmers!) in a magical land of rainbows and red roses. XANADU descends to the lowest kitsch level at every turn, and thouroughly wastes the talents of Gene Kelly, who at 60 is still a stunning, graceful dancer. One of the highlights of XANADU is watching Kelly try very hard not to enbarrass ONJ during their dancing duets, in which she makes it very clear to us that dancing is not among her many mediocre talents. To be fair, ONJ is never less than pleasant and airy, and she comes across as being probably a nice person in real life, but that doesn't change the fact that if white bread could sing, it would sound like Olivia Newton-John. Everything comes together during the final 'Xanadu' title number, in which ONJ demonstrates that she can't even lip-synch properly, while indulging in numerous costume changes that try and fail to make her look sensuous and alluring. Meanwhile, she keeps having to get out of the way of her backup group, whose energetic (but poorly choreographed) dancing constantly threatens to knock her off to one side of the overlit and badly-decorated roller-rink. The number seems to go on forever, and the near-hysterical rhythmic shriekings of the title track are not matched by a similar energy in the visuals, which are so flat and pedestrian they make Ed Wood's visual technique resemble Hitchcock's. Ironically, if you can stand them, the songs are rather catchy in an insidious way, but their febrile glee is totally lacking from this gaudy, over-produced and under-directed mess. That said, XANADU is undoubtedly a classic of a kind. Few movies are this jaw-droppingly bad. A prime example of human greed, incompetence and folly preserved on celluloid for eternity! If you love really, really bad films, then XANADU has it all!
Rating:
Summary: Gene Kelly's dancing career ends in this wretched musical
Review: Well, you have to admit they tried to find a follow-up vehicle for Olivia Newton-John after the smash success of "Grease," but it was just not to be. "Xanadu" is one of the most laughable musicals of its day, which did not include a whole lot of musicals. Olivia plays Kira, a muse who comes down from heaven to inspire a Sonny Malone (Michael Beck), young roller-boogie artist. Also helping is Gene Kelly as Danny McGuire, who had been inspired by Kira forty years before. The one thing that stands out for me in this movie is watching poor Olivia dance with Kelly; you can just see her counting off the eights in her head. Music is provided by John Ferrar and the Electric Light Orchestra, including Olivia's hit song "Magic," providing some element of redemption to the proceedings. But all in all, this is a painful experience. Forget about Olivia's career, Gene Kelly certainly deserved much better than this.
Rating: 
Summary: Xanadud
Review: Whatever possessed Olivia Newton-John to do this one, I have no idea. And Gene Kelly- did he need money for an operation? I saw this movie in the theater when it came out and thought it was awful. I caught it again on TV last year, and it's still awful: awful funny. From the opening, where the Muses pop out of a mural in Venice, CA through the mind-boggling finale, this is a jaw-droppingly funny swill-fest. What were they thinking with the animated bit with Livvy and Michael Beck as lovelorn fish? Who was the person that decided that there should be a scene where Gene Kelly is taken to Fiorucci for clothes? And exactly who made the decision that Olivia would play Terpsichore, Muse of the dance (it's bad enough that she looks like she is enduring electro-shock therapy, but they have Sandahl Bergman and half the Joffrey Ballet dancing next to her to REALLY make her look bad) The worst is the awful number where bad 80's disco "merges" with an even worse 40's swing number. It is positively nightmarish. Get this and "Please Stop", I mean "Must Stop", er, "Can't Stop the Music" to see what killed off the American musical. But keep the phone handy, you may need 911!
Rating:
Summary: a classic...honest!
Review: I have watched this movie more times that any movie in history...I have been talking about it and its accompanying soundtrack for two decades now and yet people still can't seem to get it. Xanadu is fun, entertaining, flashy, beautiful and escapist. Olivia Newton John looks ravishing in this movie and the storyline- albeit a little weak- is fun and entertaining- and is that not what movies are all about? The music is of course the best thing and the dancing and 70's fashions and amazing to watch. Olivia was at her peak musically here and the songs, choreography and acting all complement each other. Buy Xanadu and enjoy two decades of fun ..like I have.
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