Popular reviews

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  Review by Jeremy Wilson 5

  To rate Xanadu is to not "get" Xanadu. It is 5 stars, it is 0 stars. It is the stars and everything in between the stars. Xanadu is not of this world and thus has little time for your Earthly star ratings or your critical analysis or your good taste. Xanadu is nothing and Xanadu is all.

  I mean, how many movies have as many WTF moments as this? Should be cherished as the ridiculous cultural artifact it is. How can you hate something so patently ridiculous?

  And gosh is Olivia Newton-John pretty. Plus, I could watch Gene Kelly do pretty much anything for 90 minutes. Michael Beck has all the charisma and talent of a wet toad here, but…

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  Review by demi adejuyigbe 6

  Sit through the credits for a fun surprise! (every crew member is credited as “cocaine”)

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  Review by brat pacino ★★½ 9

  happy 4/20! this movie isn’t real <3

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  Review by feat. dante from the dmc series ★★★★★

  you know what? fuck it. five stars.

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  Review by Carter Spillyards ★★★★★

  We have no choice but to stan-adu

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  Review by Kat ★★★★★ 8

  How dare anyone rate this anything other than 5 stars!

  - Neon dreams baby
  - This soundtrack is amazing
  - Bring back flare jeans for men
  - Suddenly resisting the urge to rollerskate to disco
  - Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John ❤

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  Review by Colin the dude ★★★★½ 8

  The first time you watch 'Xanadu' you're a sponge absorbing the madness. You take it in, ridicule it, spit it out. The second time, if a second time doesn't sound like suicide, the experience is much kinder and the unapologetic sincerity behind it spreads like a contagion. Most are immune, but some get infected. Consider me infected. If you're an ELO fan, the film is wondrous background noise. And when you're watching the screen, there's magical colors, tap dancing, roller boogieing, laser beams, coked up dancers and it's cheez wiz heaven. 'Xanadu' is a beautiful bridge between the old (the Gene Kelly generation) and the new (the Olivia Newtown-John generation). Or more like a rainbow of 70s decadence and the pot of gold at the end is the 80s. The 60s closed with Altamont and the 70s had 'Xanadu'. The end of an era.

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  Review by celia ★★ 4

  split screen gene kelly roller skate tap dancing

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  Review by laird 4

  Stray thoughts:

  I strongly suspect that this movie, released in August of 1980, was directly or indirectly responsible for Ronald Reagan winning the U.S. presidential election that November.

  I'm disturbed by the ontological implications of a universe in which Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman exist, but Gene Kelly isn't Gene Kelly, he's just a weird clarinetist who can dance really well.

  I'm glad I'll be seeing HOLY MOUNTAIN again soon as it seems a fitting double bill.

  I don't care what anyone thinks, I really like Jeff Lynne and ELO.

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  Review by stevie 1

  Gene Kelly did not get pulled out of the nursing home and put on roller skates for this movie to get panned

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  Review by Travis Lytle ★★★★ 4

  "Xanadu" is nuts. An original musical that blends Greek myth with Gene Kelly and roller skating, Robert Greenwald's film is a slice of early 1980s cheese too committed to whatever it is trying to do to be written-off as the schlock for which it could be mistaken. It is a strange, silly collision of camp and earnestness whose exuberant charm and melodic hooks allow the right audience to completely overlook the goofiness coursing through this oddball cinematic concoction.

  The story has something to do with a muse, played by Olivia Newton-John, who winds up meeting Michael Beck's artist and redirects his path. This new path finds the artist enamored with the muse and joining creative forces with Gene Kelly's musician…

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  Review by Josh Gillam ★½ 3

  A notorious flop in its day, Xanadu is firmly an artefact of the late 70s what with its gaudy fashions, dodgy PowerPoint-esque scene transitions and the fact that roller-skating seems to be one of the only methods of transport in this world (I don’t know if anyone ever kept a tally, but this probably holds some kind of record for it in one movie, like the scene where—for some reason—rather than getting in a car that’s giving him a lift Michael Beck’s character just holds onto the back and skates along behind it).

  There’s a real time capsule vibe here, combined with a nostalgia for the recent past popular in many movies of the era, mixing then-contemporary styles with a…