The music of Xanadu was highly publicized and played extensively on radio stations in 1980, when the movie was released. I wondered why the movie was nowhere near as popular the musical soundtracks - tonight I found out why.
The plot in Xanadu is shallow, though not as bad as "Clueless," with lack of realistic challenges that anyone can relate to. Xanadu is cutesy, but also too predictable, with the viewer easily foreseeing that everything is going to work out in the end - this is the ideal, as it should be in all movies, but one disappointment here is that aside from all the "good-fairy magic," there's no element of story surprise here, or even any room for it.
It's strong point (as I see it) is that it can take the viewer to another world, and have them dream of dancing away with someone gorgeous in make-believe settings that the actors can create for themselves to suit their moves. The costumes, roller skating, and special effects are exceptional, even for 2008 when I wrote this review, and the fusion of disco and mid-1940's war era dancing worked out very well.
Xanadu's lack of dialog was filled with creative fantasy dancing, and even a little animation, but none of this moved the story forward - they spend alot of film footage glorifying the arts of the dance, but I came here to watch a movie, not a StarSearch Dance Contest - boy was I disappointed. Not all movies can master replacing dialog with "a story told in pictures" like the "Mr. Bean" movies, and this is not one of them.
The plot in Xanadu is shallow, though not as bad as "Clueless," with lack of realistic challenges that anyone can relate to. Xanadu is cutesy, but also too predictable, with the viewer easily foreseeing that everything is going to work out in the end - this is the ideal, as it should be in all movies, but one disappointment here is that aside from all the "good-fairy magic," there's no element of story surprise here, or even any room for it.
It's strong point (as I see it) is that it can take the viewer to another world, and have them dream of dancing away with someone gorgeous in make-believe settings that the actors can create for themselves to suit their moves. The costumes, roller skating, and special effects are exceptional, even for 2008 when I wrote this review, and the fusion of disco and mid-1940's war era dancing worked out very well.
Xanadu's lack of dialog was filled with creative fantasy dancing, and even a little animation, but none of this moved the story forward - they spend alot of film footage glorifying the arts of the dance, but I came here to watch a movie, not a StarSearch Dance Contest - boy was I disappointed. Not all movies can master replacing dialog with "a story told in pictures" like the "Mr. Bean" movies, and this is not one of them.
Please login or 
