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Obviously, there was no need for a sequel to Grease, but a sequel that didn't feature the biggest names and yet still claimed lineage (plotwise at least) to the original, fairly reeked of cynicism. In Grease 2, it is 1961 - two years later at Rydell High - and Sandy's cousin Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) is an exchange student from Britain in the states for his senior year. He locks eyes with Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer), leader of the Pink Ladies and finds he must transform from clean-cut to mysterious and "dangerous" in order to woo her. Frenchy (Didi Conn) returns for a few scenes - she has re-enrolled at Rydell after dropping out from beauty school - but the script quickly tires of her and she disappears before the end. In fact, the only real through line in the plot is the talent show which is announced on the first day of school at the beginning and closes the film out the night before graduation (in conjunction with a Tiki-themed luau).

As a musical, the songs are all over the map, ranging from 1950s style ballads ("A Girl for All Seasons") to retro '50s numbers that sound like what Jim Steinman was cooking up for Meat Loaf at the time ("Cool Rider" "We'll Be Together") to pop-rock numbers that sound like they are from the Beatles era ("Back to School Again"). None of them struck any bells but I was agog over the lyrics to the sex education class tune "Reproduction" which quickly abandons double entendres for lines even more obvious. As far as I recall, that didn't lead to any uncomfortable "stamens and pistils/birds and bees" chats with my parents.

It must be said that Caulfield is so impossibly cartoonishly handsome in a British, chiseled-face sort of way that he upstages Pfeiffer (with her fine features and piercing eyes) while coming across like a lost member of Haircut 100 or Glenn Scarparelli, the matinee idol from the old Archie comics. Even when Michael is being ingratiating, Caulfield's prettiness makes the character come across as slightly aloof. Coupled with the ice princess-ish nature of Pfeiffer's role, it's hard for the pair to generate sparks. You want to just keep handing them mirrors in which they can look.

So what was it that drew me in once upon a time? The motorcycles (replacing the T-Bird as vehicle of choice), the bright colors and the grand-scale dance numbers with hundreds of extras. Patricia Birch, the choreographer on the first, made her one and only step into the director's chair for Grease 2, as well as designing the dances here. And in widescreen, several of the productions come off as deserving of the framing, even if evidence of the film's troubled and hurried shoot can be glimpsed throughout. Birch, a five-time Tony nominee, continues to work as a choreographer, even if, unlike Adam Shankman, she wasn't able to parlay her day job into a second career.

It has been remarked that musicals were the special effects action blockbusters of their day and that once audiences opted for one form of spectacle over another, musicals lost a lot of their commercial appeal. Perhaps. Considering how much I liked Grease 2 as a child and that Jesus Christ Superstar was the first album I played in continuous rotation (my parents did not have an extensive music collection, to say the least) and fell in rapture with, musicals it seems will always have a special place in my heart and a hold on my imagination

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