Released in 1982 and not based on any kind of stage play, “Grease 2” is just bad as the original. Even people who like the original tend to not like this dreck, which takes anything that could remotely be enjoyed about “Grease” and messily removes it.
Imagine “Grease” as a bowl of trail mix. The M&Ms in there are the good songs and Stockard Channing, and the rest of the movie is everything else. “Grease 2” takes all of the M&Ms out of the bowl and replaces them with brightly colored plastic. It looks the same, but does not stand up to any level of scrutiny.
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This film stars Michelle Pfeiffer — who might be the strongest actress in either movie — but gives her nothing to do. She works opposite Maxwell Caulfield, a remarkably boring man who has managed to never be in anything good. His last listed credit was in 2015, and the highlight of his career was an OK episode of “Modern Family.” Turns out this film might have been something of a harbinger.
Like many rush-job sequels, “Grease 2” is more or less a bastard spawn of the original, hammered out and released less than five years after. Filming actually began without a completed script, and by god, does it show. Frenchy, a character from the original film, is in there for about half of the movie as a love interest, gets unceremoniously dumped and vanishes. This is something of a theme.
While the original movie was tangentially about cars, “Grease 2” decides cars aren’t cool enough and is about motorcycles. Sure, why not? Also, Pfeiffer plays the rebellious one, while Caulfield’s Michael is much more restrained and nerdy. See, this isn’t like the original at all!
But where it fails most spectacularly is the stakes. The main subplot of “Grease” was the notion that Stockard Channing’s Rizzo might be pregnant, and it follows how she deals with it. At the end, it stupidly turns out she never was, making the whole plot point worthless, but at least it was something. There were stakes and for a while, it felt real. Contrarily, “Grease 2” decides to make the whole “teenagers actually have sex sometimes” thing feel real by having three different awful songs about sex.
Oh yes. Not one, not two but three songs are about the wonderful phenomenon of awkward, hormonal teenagers doing the unholy. None of them are good, but “Reproduction” takes the cake, if only for the line where a student asks her teacher if he has the honor to fuck women with a condom on. It may not surprise you to learn this song was written by a man.
Honestly, what else is there to say about “Grease 2?” When it’s not being outright offensive, it’s boring. When it’s not boring, it’s nonsensical. It doesn’t even have the original’s defense that there are good songs. There’s no “You’re the One That I Want” here. Instead, we’re stuck with a bunch of middle-aged men comparing adolescent sex to bowling. God help us all.
