Grease 2: Steelbook Edition - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Grease 2: Steelbook Edition



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
1982’s (my birth year actually) sequel to Grease is known for being one of those awful sequels that just couldn’t live up to the original. Over the years it has formed a sort of cult following as many of these “so bad they’re kinda good” sequels do, but it’s still a weaaak sequel that pretty much only had Rizzo returning, Michelle Pfeiffer hamming it up, and a young Maxwell Caulfield (soon to be the douche in Empire Records) replacing John Travolta’s lead.

Grease 2 was originally released as a part of the 3-film Grease Collection which included the live play, but then was re released 2 years later in 2020 for it’s own standalone. Now we get the same disc (no remastering, pretty typical of a non Paramount Presents disc), a new steelbook case, AND a digital copy for the first time.

It’s another school year at Rydell High, and 2 years after Danny and Sandy’s whirlwind romance at the school things have pretty much stayed the same. The T-birds are still fly as can be, the pink lady’s dominate the women’s side, and the talent show is coming up. However, affairs of the heart still are at play at Rydell high. Stephanie (Michelle) has fallen out of love with Johnny (Adrian Zmed), head of the T-birds biker gang, and uses young Michael (Maxwell Caulfield) to spit her ex boyfriend. However, Michael is smitten with Stephanie HARD after her little jealousy kiss, and proceeds to try to win her hand. Molding himself into the coolest biker there is, he hides his face with a helmet and soon gets Stephanie to fall in love with him. But she’s still not exactly in love with Michael, so now it’s up to him to figure out how to reveal himself to her and keep the babe.

Grease 2 is just hilariously hammy in ever way. It’s not even on the same remote ballpark as the first movie (which is genuinely a classic), and drops to campy comedy more than classic. The songs are more slapstick then ever (the whole biology reproduction scene has one of the worst overly catchy songs of the movie), and the ending is pure goofball cheese. Is it sort of fun? Yeah, but the movie just grasps at straws to keep the audience engaged, as neither Maxwell or Michelle really has the draw that Olivia Newton John and John Travolta had.

The musical numbers feel slapdash and out of place, and I actually felt that the movie could have worked as a straight movie instead of a musical. Some of them work, but the songs feel more int eruptive rather than cohesive, and the paper thin story just drones on about 15 minutes too long.




Rating:

Rated PG by the MPAA




Video:

The Blu-ray seems to be sourced from an older master, but one that is quite serviceable. Colors are bold and lively, with good details all the way around. I did notice some black crush in the night time shots and a little banding, but overall nothing that would really bring the image down that much. There’s plenty of pinks, reds and a ruddy overall look to the image that was indicative of the early 1980s. There’s a very filmic quality with good grain structure, but an odd penchant for having soft scenes come out of nowhere. An overall solid looking (if not aged) transfer.










Audio:

The 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track is a bit on the thin side. Taking after Disney, it feels a bit hollow and low on the bass, and not wildly aggressive. Dialog is still crisp and clean up front, but you do have to crank the volume knob to get any real dynamics out of the mix. The music is impressive at times, but generally a bit uneventful, and low end support is moderate at best. It does everything well ENOUGH, just just fails to really pus the envelope.












Extras:

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Final Score: ​

Is Grease 2 a good movie? Oh for goodness sakes no. It’s a bad movie, but one that has sort of garnered a cult following over the years. This is the same disc, with the same zero extras as the previous two iterations, just with a fancy new digital copy and steelbook case. Personally, I feel that this movie is aimed DIRECTLY at the fans of this low budget sequel. Otherwise most people will just skit it or put on the old disc.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Maxwell CAulfield, Lorna Luf
Directed by: Patricia Birch
Written by: Ken Finkleman, Jim Jacobs, Warren Casey
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguse DD 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Icelandic, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rated: NR
Runtime: 114 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: May 7th, 2022

Recommendation: For the Fans

 

[Epoxy1]

2.5 stars is VERY generous for this movie. I barely got through it! Other than that, I agree with the A/V quality on the disc, but it's best just to skip this one altogether.

 

[Michael Scott]

2.5 stars is VERY generous for this movie. I barely got through it! Other than that, I agree with the A/V quality on the disc, but it's best just to skip this one altogether.

lol, I still have a soft spot in my heart for this trash fest. I know, I know