Entertainment
Raunchy 80s Comedy Is A Campy Coming Of Age Sequel
By Robert Scucci
| Published
When was the last time you fired up 1982’s Grease 2? I’ll bet you have fond memories of the singing and dancing, the dudes and the dames, and the sexually charged innuendos that drip from every single number. Romance. Cool Riders. Reproduction. Doing it for your country. There are so many memorable moments in Grease 2, but it’s also a painful watch because of how hard it leans into its camp.
Having gone to high school myself at one point in my life, I don’t remember having any classmates who were approaching their 30th birthday. I don’t recall resolving differences with rival cliques by snapping my fingers and doing jazz hands. And I especially don’t remember an expensive luau themed homecoming party where someone crashes a motorcycle into a swimming pool.
On one hand, I get it. Grease 2 is supposed to be a fun 80s film about high school, set in the early 60s. Times were certainly different. Back then, it was socially acceptable to lock your girlfriend in a bomb shelter and make unwanted advances under the guise of patriotism while your buddies on the other side of the fortified door high-five each other because you’re about to score. You know, good clean fun.
It probably sounds like I’m needlessly railing on Grease 2 because I don’t know how to have fun, and that’s partially true. Despite all of my complaints, I still find it bafflingly rewatchable for reasons beyond my understanding. It really is a fun film, but the fun I have while watching it is at its expense, not because I want to be one of the dudes.
The Primary Players
Grease 2 wastes no time coming in hot and introducing us to its characters. School is back in session, and everyone attending Rydell High spent the entire summer choreographing their epic return. During this opening sequence, we meet the primary players in spectacular fashion as Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer) is christened the new leader of the Pink Ladies and shows us the lay of the land alongside Sharon (Maureen Teefy), Paulette (Lorna Luft), Rhonda (Alison Price), and Dolores (Pamela Segall).
Smash cut to the resident biker gang and class cutups, the T-Birds. Included in the gang are Goose (Christopher McDonald), Johnny (Adrian Zmed), Louis (Peter Frechette), and Davey (Leif Green). All of the T-Birds are portrayed by actors who are pushing 30, even though they’re meant to be high school seniors. If you were coming of age in the 80s and found yourself wondering why you didn’t need to replace your razor cartridge every three days to keep your five o’clock shadow at bay, it’s probably because Grease 2 was your only frame of reference.
Rounding out the lineup is Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield), the British exchange student trying to find his place in this wacky world where a spicy song and dance number is always right around the corner. That search for belonging eventually puts him directly in front of Stephanie, his primary love interest.
Cool Riders, Charades, And Pretty Lies!
With the introductions out of the way, let’s talk about Grease 2’s primary conflict. Michael pines for Stephanie. Stephanie, the head of the Pink Ladies, only wants to borrow jackets from cool riders. Michael has a lightbulb moment and decides he can be a cool rider. He gets a motorcycle, learns how to ride it, and promptly sweeps Stephanie off her feet. The problem is that Stephanie doesn’t know this cool rider is Michael because he’s wearing a helmet and goggles, and she still has unresolved feelings for Johnny, even though she’s mostly over his womanizing and arrogant attitude.
The T-Birds, meanwhile, are too busy preparing for their talent show audition and a choreographed bowling alley brawl with rival biker gang the Cycle Lords (sigh), but they also want a piece of the Cool Rider’s mystique. This is complicated by the small detail that he’s trying to steal Johnny’s girl. Are you keeping up? Good, because it somehow gets dumber.
Louis locks Sharon in a bomb shelter and pretends a nuclear attack is imminent, hoping this manufactured moment of desperation will help him score. Everyone in sex education class makes Mr. Stuart (Tab Hunter) hot and bothered while singing about the reproductive process in graphic detail. As mentioned earlier, everyone in this universe is well rehearsed and ready to break into a blistering jam at the drop of a hat if it helps move the plot forward. Cool Rider faces off with the Cycle Lords, led by Leo “Crater Face” Balmudo (Dennis Stewart), and everyone claps. Wow.
How Is This A Thing?
Grease 2 is an absolute punisher if I’ve ever seen one, yet I probably watch it once a year for a good laugh. Everything about this movie is inherently ridiculous, and it becomes even more absurd if you look up the actors’ birthdates. These are people born in the 1950s, starring in a 1982 production, portraying teenagers in 1961. None of it makes sense, and I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
What really sells Grease 2 as a guilty pleasure is how committed everyone is to the premise. It doesn’t matter that the only reason Stephanie likes Michael is because he has a cool bike. The cool bike is the friends we make along the way, and once she catches on to Michael’s alter ego, she can ride on his handlebars guilt-free while Johnny eats dust for being such a handsy little tomcat.
Your mileage may vary on Grease 2, but if you want to see what $11 million worth of sexual innuendo and hip choreography looks like, you can stream the film for free on Pluto as of this writing.
