DVD Movie Guide @ dvdmg.com
.
Review Archive:  # | A-C | D-F | G-I | J-L | M-O | P-R | S-U | V-Z | Viewer Ratings | Main
PARAMOUNT PICTURES

MOVIE INFO
Director:
Sylvester Stallone
Cast:
John Travolta, Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Steve Inwood, Julie Bovasso
Screenplay:
Nik Cohn, Sylvester Stallone & Norman Wexler

Tagling:
It's five years later for Tony Manero. The fever still burns!
MPAA:
Rated PG.

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Widescreen 1.85:1/16x9
Audio:
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Surround
French Dolby Surround
Subtitles:
English, Spanish
Closed-captioned

Runtime: 96 min.
Price: $24.99
Release Date: 10/8/2002

Bonus:
• None.


PURCHASE
DVD
Music soundtrack

Search Products:

EQUIPMENT
Sony 36" WEGA KV-36FS12 Monitor; Sony DA333ES Processor/Receiver; Panasonic CV-50 DVD Player using component outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Sony SA-WM40 Subwoofer.

RELATED REVIEWS

[an error occurred while processing this directive]


Staying Alive (1983)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson

A tale of two soundtracks: 1977’s Saturday Night Fever mixed a variety of artists along with six Bee Gees songs. It became a cultural phenomenon and sold about 15 million copies. The album for that film’s sequel, 1983’s Staying Alive, mixed a variety of artists with six Bee Gees songs. It vanished without a trace and sold about 15 copies.

This offers a good analogy for both of those movies. Fever provided a lively and gripping look at urban culture, and it remains a strong piece of work that hasn’t aged all that much. Alive, on the other hand, falls totally flat, as it offers a limp trifle that seems almost impossibly dated.

Set a few years after the conclusion of Fever, Staying Alive finds Tony Manero (John Travolta) in Manhattan, where he struggles to get a toehold in the world of Broadway dancers. He doesn’t seem to be doing too hot, and he moonlights as a dancing instructor. His girlfriend Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes) is doing a little better, and Tony goes to watch her in a show.

While at that performance, he espies lead performer Laura (Finola Hughes) and immediately develops a serious case of the hots for this fiery diva. He hits on her and she uses him for sex. Tony wants more but has trouble getting her to give him the time of day, though she still periodically dallies with him.

Matters complicate when Jackie gets Tony an audition for a new show, one that stars Laura. He lands a minor role but eventually snares the male lead. He takes Jackie for granted and wants to have his cake and eat it too, but he’ll eventually have to make a choice. Ooh, do the sparks fly when this love triangle comes to a boil!

I should probably change my punctuation for that last sentence: do the sparks fly when this love triangle comes to a boil? If I do that, the answer comes back a resounding “no!” Nothing about this miserable flick flies, boils, or anything else spice. It limps along and does nothing more than saps one’s will to live.

I decided to check out Staying Alive because I really liked Saturday Night Fever and I felt genuinely curious to see the next chapter in the main character’s life. I knew the sequel received a critical drubbing, but I still thought it might be fun to see more of Tony. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting. There’s no way I consider the boring schlub in Alive to be the same Tony Manero I watched in Fever.

Rather than articulate all of the things I thought were wrong with Alive, perhaps I should instead discuss the aspects that worked. Um… er… okay, I’d better go back to the bad aspects – I can’t think of a single positive about this disaster.

So what problems occurred during Alive>? For one, the movie seemed impossibly dated. Sure, some aspects of Fever haven’t aged pretty well, but despite all the Seventies fashions and whatnot, that flick appears remarkably timeless. Hey, I’m sure there are some guys in Brooklyn who do still dress that way! However, nobody looks like the people in Alive. I know they once did – I was a teenager in the mid-Eighties and still remember those fashions all too well – but Alive seems much more mired in its period than does Fever.

Those elements affect more than just the styles, however. Everything else about Alive appeared stuck in 1983 as well. Director Sylvester Stallone finds every cinematic cliché of the period and piles them on during this film. Worst of the bunch is the ubiquitous pop soundtrack. For better or for worse, Fever pioneered that trend, and Alive takes the use of songs in movies to its absolute nadir.

Not only does Stallone pour on songs when they’re unnecessary or even obtrusive, but he also finds some of the worst music ever committed to tape. The Bee Gees seem to prove that lightning never strikes twice with their material. Frankly, their new tunes don’t appear bad so much as they’re absolutely forgettable. I defy you to watch Fever and not whistle some of the songs after that, but I also challenge you to even vaguely remember any of their work from Alive.

It gets worse from there, largely due to Stallone’s nepotism. He hired brother Frank to compose and play a number of songs in Alive, and he even cast him in a minor role! Frank Stallone’s “Far From Over” pervades this movie and makes the results even more unbearable. The soundtrack’s inundated with Eighties cheese – the heavy synth tones haven’t aged well – but I still have nightmares about “Far From Over”.

Travolta’s performance as Tony in Fever made him a movie star. The actor already maintained a major following from his role as Barbarino on Welcome Back Kotter, but Fever showed that he could emerge as a stellar talent in his own right, even in a dramatic setting. Travolta’s Tony was a stunning creation who held together that movie and made it a fiery success.

This Tony has virtually no connection to the original. In fact, he feels like a totally different character. Travolta sleepwalks through the part and imbues Tony with absolutely none of the energy or charisma we saw in Fever. His Brooklyn accent comes and goes and the character ultimately feels like a milquetoast version of the original.

The supporting actors don’t help. Rhodes offers one of the dullest performances ever put on film. No wonder Tony won’t commit to her; she’s a human sleeping pill! As Laura, Hughes basically does a poor man’s version of Joan Collins. She seems bitchy but flat and brings no spark to the part.

The film “climaxes” with the debut of Tony and Laura’s production, something called “Satan’s Alley”. I’m not an authority on Broadway musicals, but “Satan’s Alley” doesn’t look like something that’d be at home on the Great White Way. Instead, it heavily resembles a Las Vegas show. With its total emphasis on dancing and its scantily-clad, buff performers, this is something we’d see on the Strip.

Except that none of the actors do strip in this “PG” flick. Essentially, that makes Staying Alive a version of Showgirls without the skin. Since that film’s copious female nudity was the only thing that made it watchable, Staying Alive offers absolutely no redeeming qualities. I really did enter my screening of the movie with an open mind, and I wanted to like it. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to enjoy in this brainless, dated, and wholly terrible sequel.


The DVD Grades: Picture C- / Audio B- / Bonus F

Staying Alive appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this single-sided, single-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. While Saturday Night Fever provided a fairly nice transfer, it appeared no one bothered to put much work into the relatively weak visuals of its sequel.

Sharpness generally seemed fine. The movie displayed some dull spots, and these occasionally cropped up at odd times. Normally I’ll find that wide shots come across with the fuzziest imagery, but that didn’t necessarily occur during Alive. While I indeed saw a few soft wides, I also noticed some surprisingly weak close-ups, such as when we watched Tony at Laura’s party. Perhaps this was an attempt at a “glamour shots” kind of thing, but it seemed weird in any case.

Despite such oddities, sharpness usually was acceptable, and I also noticed no issues related to jagged edges or moiré effects. A little light edge enhancement appeared, but that didn’t seem too problematic. Print flaws offered more serious concerns. I noticed a mix of small specks, grit and marks, but the biggest issue related to grain. Alive usually showed some form of that distraction, and at times the picture became quite grainy. While some of these problems likely were inherent from the original material, I couldn’t help but believe that some judicious cleaning would substantially improve the presentation.

Many Eighties flicks featured weak colors, and Alive fell into that mold. The hues seemed thick and bland across the board, and colored lighting became a definite concern. Those examples appeared rather heavy and murky. Between nightclubs and stage productions, Alive featured a lot of colored lighting, so that problem cropped up more often than usual. Black levels looked drab and inky, while shadow detail was muddy and dense. Ultimately, Staying Alive did offer a few attractive sequences, which narrowly kept this generally flat and ugly image from “D” territory.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of Staying Alive clearly improved on the visuals, though it also provided a pretty lackluster piece of work. Given the age and nature of the material, I expected the audio to remain oriented toward the front, and I got what I anticipated. The sound stayed focused on the forward channels, where it offered a reasonably distinct environment. Music dominated the movie, and the songs showed fairly good stereo separation and presence. Effects generally remained in the vein of ambience, but the elements meshed neatly and created a decent little sense of atmosphere. As for the surrounds, mostly they reinforced the music, but they also added a minor sense of ambience.

Audio quality appeared lackluster but acceptable for its age. Though some exterior shots displayed weak dubbing, speech generally came across as natural and distinct, and I noticed no issues related to edginess or intelligibility. Effects played the smallest role in the production, but they appeared accurate and clean, and they showed no signs of distortion or other problems. Although music dominated, it didn’t shine. The songs demonstrated decent high-end clarity and brightness, but they lacked substantial low-end response. Bass seemed passable at best, and the music displayed little life or verve. Ultimately, Staying Alive sounded a little above average for its era, but it did little to stand out from the crowd.

While Saturday Night Fever earned special edition treatment, Staying Alive merited no such material. The DVD fails to include any supplements whatsoever. There’s no trailer, no filmographies, no nothing! I admit I’d have killed for a Stallone commentary to try to explain what in the world he was thinking when he filmed this stinker.

Make no mistake: movies get no worse than Staying Alive. I won’t categorically state that it’s the crummiest film ever assembled, but considering the expense of the production and the talent involved, it’s hard to conjure many flicks that top it for sheer badness. The DVD provides generally weak picture with decent but unexceptional audio and absolutely no supplements. Watch Staying Alive only if you’re a total masochist.

Viewer Film Ratings: 3.2285 Stars Number of Votes: 35
155:
34:
4 3:
12:
121:
View Averages for all rated titles.