Rating: 
Summary: Dated but thoroughly charming musical fantasy
Review: "Xanadu" is one of those films people either love or loathe. To love it is to allow yourself to get totally carried away by this rather spirited fantasy that is escapist, fun, and a treat for the ears and eyes. "Grease" may be more popular, but for my money Olivia Newton-John is a knockout in this movie and she and the terrific music of ELO make it one of the best musicals to come out of Hollywood since 1971's "The Boy Friend".Colorful, imaginative, and loaded with dance and spectacle, "Xanadu" is almost too far-out for most people to digest. Glowing muses, mannequins coming to life, Gene Kelly on Rollerskates... Definitely worth a look-see and chock full of kicky oddities like the 'things that make you go hmmmm' look of Livvy in her sun dress, leg-warmers and high heels. My Favorite class/trash film of all time!
Rating: 
Summary: Great music saves this one
Review: Despite the pretty colors and the serene presence of Olivia Newton-John, "Xanadu" is a howler right up there with "Robot Monster." Numbingly bad acting (poor Gene Kelly tries really hard, though), horrendous dialogue that even as a 13-year-old had me squirming with embarrassment that I had paid money to see this, special effects that scream late 70's, and horrible choreography. And the storyline . . . if a muse was coming back to inspire someone, I don't think it would be to build a roller disco. So if I think it's so bad, why give it 3 stars? First, the music. Overseen by Olivia's longtime producer John Farrar and ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, the soundtrack does not have one dull moment. I still own the soundtrack! Lastly, like the aforementioned "Robot Monster," "Xanadu" is so bad it's funny. Rent or buy this, and I guarantee you'll be groaning, giggling--and singing along.
Rating: 
Summary: a guilty pleasure
Review: Okay folks, it's not art (for the most part)...but c'mon, have some FUN. This film had the misfortune to be shot at the end of the disco era and the beginning of the so-called "New Wave" movement, only to be released after disco had died HARD. So, we are treated to a strange mix of 70's roller boogie/disco glitter, 40's nostalgia, and a premonition of 80's silliness to come (e.g., off the shoulder dresses, engineered hair--pass the mousse please, and leg warmers with flats). A film in which the men wear shirts unbuttoned to their navels half the time AND one that includes leg warmers and big hair on the women in the other scenes is a strange juxtoposition indeed!
I remember all the preceeding fads well, because I worked retail at the time, and believe me, I sold TONS of crap as seen in this film. People can rip on it all they want, but those 70's and 80's fasion faux pas were hugely popular.
If you can get past the tremendous cheese factor--or maybe you shouldn't--there are some lovely songs by Ms. Newton-John, several of which turned out to be pop hits, despite the commercial failure of the film. The "Whenever You're Away From Me" song/dance duet is absolutely precious. Gene Kelly is to be forgiven for that number alone.
The DVD version of the film has some nice bounuses, including some production notes on "What they were thinking" when they devised this vehicle. The print is scratchy and grainy in some spots and okay in others--obviously no one thought enough of this film to preserve it well, and as for a restoration? Not likely.
Overall, an odd, fun cheesy movie; enjoy it for what it is. Let the purists go watch "The French Lieutenant's Woman" or something else deep. I'd rather live in Xanadu, thank you.
Rating:
Summary: This movie is alot of fun ....
Review: I was just given this movie as a gift. This movie a fun musical not an oscar winner. I love the music, the time period, it's just suppose to be alot of fun. Olivia Newton John, Gene Kelly and the rest of the cast are great. If your are looking
for an award winner. This musical is not for you. If You are out for some real fun take a peek.
Rating:
Summary: Xanadu can be done better, and I have the proof!
Review: Until last year, no one loved Xanadu more than me. But then, I got an idea that will revolutionize not just this specific film, but the entire film industry. I said (to myself, my concubine Miss Swiss, and my pinscer Dom Deluise The Dog), "Why not combine the things I love most in life: Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton John, my dogs, including you, Dom Deluise the Dog, and filming people and animals in painfully awkward situations?" Clearly, it was a perfect idea.
I subsequently reshot most of the Xanadu footage substituting my at the time twenty three dogs for the movie's actors (sadly, my dog managerie has dwindled to just seventeen, thanks to the ravages of time). I cast my poodle, Pooh Pooh Maguire, in the lead role made famous by the fabulous Olivia Newton John. After I did live action shots of all of the scenes, I digitized my footage and began the pain-staking task of digitally manipulating the dogs' mouths to match the dialogue frame-by-frame. I would estimate that I am about 81% done with this task, six years into the project.
Although my version of Xanadu is not quite done, I have finished enough to know it is a cinematic masterpiece of the human heart. Just glimpsing at the cover art of my version is enough to make my soul soar. I know now that Xanadu is not the xenith of human accomplishment. Xanadu: Canine Pleasure takes that title. Until you have seen Pooh Pooh Maguire in leg warmers and rollerskates, you cannot know what it means to love. You cannot know God.
Rating: 
Summary: Does Anybody Have Some Xantac Handy?
Review: Yikes! This movie is truly bombastic in a disco version of Moulin Rouge sense. Livvy is beautiful, but the dresses stink, 1980-flower-in-the-hair style. We don't need greek goddesses on skates granting wishes to big nosed guys who never could act in any role. Well, of all the roles he couldn't act in, Michael Beck's performance in this is the worst, simply because he can't sing or dance either. Gene Kelly must have been in debt, because there was no other reason for him to be in this badly dressed disco horror film.
The music is bad because I hate ELO. The choreography is wretched, and the alleged storyline of a skating muse that gets down to Studio 54 and the Tubes is just nauseating. This movie is so bad it's funny, and I watch it for nostalgic reasons once every couple of years. I can't handle it much more than that.
The only redeeming factors about this film are watching Lovely Livvy dance with Gene Kelly and hearing her sing. Everything else about it has the distinct odor of Jethro Clampett in the outhouse after a 10-day chili festival. Hoo-doggy!
Rating:
Summary: 5 étoiles pour le film...
Review: Mais le DVD n'en mérite pas tant.
Tout d'abord parce que les menus et le graphisme de la jaquette ne rendent pas entièrement justice au film. Ensuite et surtout parce que certains documents dont l'existence est connue de tous les admirateurs du film mais qui sont très rares (comme l'essentiel MAKING XANADU de 30 min, ou encore certaines scènes coupées dont celle inaboutie où Olivia Newton-John, apparemment douée du don d'ubiquité, se démultiplie en trois Andrew Sisters) auraient pu être inclus au DVD.
Il faut tout de même reconnaître certaines qualités à l'édition. Si le film n'a vraisemblablement pas été restauré avant le transfert, l'image est très belle. L'autre point fort de ce disque est de proposer les pistes originales (piste anglaise et doublage français) qui sont d'excellente facture et largement supérieures à celles imposées par Universal sur le zone 2 sorti récemment un peu partout en Europe (mais toujours pas en France). Enfin, l'éditeur a quand même fait l'effort de sortir de ses placards une bande-annonce plutôt rare jusqu'à la sortie du DVD.
Même si le film en son temps a fait un bide en terme d'entrées au cinéma, Universal devrait pourtant être conscient du phénomène de culte qui s'est formé autour du film au fil des années. Sa musique est un succès interplanétaire, certains films lui rendent hommage et l'histoire a même été reprise sur scène dans une comédie musicale. A quand une véritable édition?
Pour ce qui est de XANADU, il se peut malheureusement que vous ne voyiez que les aspects négatifs du film : les effets spéciaux sommaires, l'intrigue parfois un peu mince, Michael Beck...
Vous pouvez aussi le voir entre amis le samedi soir au second degré et vous garantir quelques fous rires. Mais vous passerez toujours à côté de quelque chose.
Laissez-vous plutôt emporter par la magie, la fantaisie du film, comme un enfant, sans vous poser de questions : laissez la voix mélodieuse d'Olivia Newton-John vous ensorceler et suivez Gene Kelly qui fait des claquettes sur des patins à roulettes (véridique!). Osez pénétrer dans ce monde plein de musique et de danse, où les rêves deviennent réalité...
Un humble hommage aux comédies musicales des années 1940 devenu un film culte de 1980!
Rating:
Summary: The Worst Movie I Ever Saw
Review: Have you ever read a movie review in which the critic said a film was so bad it made him or her squirm in his or her seat?
That was my exact reaction to this movie. It's the only movie I've ever seen that made me uncomfortable watching it.
To show you how awful I thought this movie was, I had bought the soundtrack to it before the movie came out and loved it, especially the song in which Olivia Newton-John sings a 1940s-style song while the Tubes sing a 1980s rock song. After I saw the movie, not only did I not want to listen to the soundtrack anymore, I wanted to throw it away so it wouldn't bring back any memories of this turkey.
The two leads, Ms. Newton-John (who I was a big fan of) and Michael Beck, CANNOT act. Worse yet, Mr. Beck can't sing or dance either, which begs the question, "What's he doing in a musical?"
Gene Kelly's presence in this movie begs another question, "Why?!"
The plot succeeds in being very thin and absurd at the same time. I thought the idea of Olivia Newton-John as a muse was the dumbest thing I've ever seen--until the movie trots out the concept that idyllic, poetic Xanadu can somehow be reincarnated as a 1980s rollerdisco club.
In conclusion, I recommend that people don't make the same mistake I did and avoid this film like the plague.
Rating:
Summary: So bad... So good!!!
Review: In 1980, Olivia Newton-John was red hot, fresh off the success of Grease and the excellent Totally Hot album, and with Physical yet to come, she was arguably in the middle of her prime. So what was next to come? A movie musical blending the glitz and glamour of 1940's musicals with the fresh 1980's outscape.
Olivia played Kira, a rollerskating muse sent to guide painter Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) to his destiny. Along the way, Sonny befriends former big band musician Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly in his final film performance), who also was guided by Kira some thirty-five years earlier. Skip to the chase... Sonny and Kira fall in love, Kira guides Sonny and Danny to starting a rollerdisco named Xanadu, Sonny and Kira have wrong-side-of-the-track problems, Xanadu opens, Kira performs, happy ever after.
Ok, sounds like a weird movie? you haven't the slightest clue yet. Complete with an animated musical sequence directed by Don Bluth, an embarassingly dated (I was a baby in 1980... but I doubt it was even cool then) fashion shop sequence, another scene merging 40's and 80's music, complete with bright orange clothing and synthesizers galore, and another scene with animated dancing muses... the movie defines camp, and while it's remembered as a bad movie, it's also remembered as a cult classic. By the way, the soundtrack album, half Olivia Newton-John, half Electric Light Orchestra, is a very good album, regardless of the movie's reputation.
Will Olivia Newton-John want this movie mentioned to her face ever again? I highly doubt it. Did Gene Kelly wonder why he did this? Probably so. Will a conniseur of bad camp love this movie? Hell yes!!
Rating:
Summary: Xanadu - The Movie Musical of the 80's - A Pop Culture Must
Review: I have seen Xanadu well over 100 times. To say I am very familiar with the film is an understatement. This film is unfortunately very under-rated and has been the victim of numerous scathing reviews throughout the years since its release in 1980. I hope to put a stop to that with this review.
One of the main reasons that Xanadu suffered/continues to suffer such an unfortunate fate with regards to movie-goers in my opinion is mostly to blame on the extremely bad timing of its initial release. The movie was released right as Disco and Roller-Disco's were going out of favor. This had a very negative effect on the movie, since the major plot line involves two men, both of which realize that they share a dream to open a "modern-day" disco/roller rink who have the help of a muse from Ancient Greece to fulfill their dream.
The funny part about it all is that the music for the film is not what most people would classify as "Disco." This too also had it's negative implications on the movie as the "Disco Sucks" movement was in full-force when the movie was released. To the contrary, the soundtrack for the film performed extremely well and spawned 3 top-ten hits.
If one can overlook the bad timing of the film's initial release and that the music is not what many would call Disco, one can see that Xanadu was an extremely balsy movie to make in 1980. Movie-musicals had fallen out of favor decades before the film was released. Xanadu, with the star power of Olivia Newton John and Gene Kelly and a great soundtrack, could very well be viewed as one of the reasons film-makers even conisidered bringing the movie-musical genre back into vogue with films like Evita, Chicago and most recently, Phantom of the Opera.
Perhaps one of Xanadu's greatest assets as a film is that it is simply fun to watch. The creative special effects and muscial sequences are the reasonto watch the film. Yes, the script does not really embody the standards for most good films, but is the script really why someone would go to see Xanadu? As a 7 year-old, seeing Xanadu for me had nothing to do with the script or the plot. All I wanted to see was Olivia Newton John sing on the screen and really didn't care how they got her into the songs. When you think about it from this perspective, Xanadu delivers exactly what the majority of the target audience going to see the film were expecting and wanting to see, which was Olivia, post-Grease, continuing to look gorgeous and sing.
With that said, Xanadu is a well-made movie contrary to the "B-movie" status others may label it as having. Yes it has sappy parts and over-the-top parts, but who cares? Take this movie as what it was meant to be, a fun movie that gets you tapping your foot during the musical numbers and makes you want to go out and buy the soundtrack afterwards. I am still in love with it after 24 years and can honestly say that it's one of the few movies thatI can watch again and again and not grow tired of.
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