I had some doubts as I began watching Grease Live. It starts out with some young woman running through various stage lots singing Grease, that terrible disco song written for the 1978 movie, and I found it all a little too cutesy.The first scenes felt a little like community theater, a problem particularly noticeable with Aaron Tveit's Danny, whose attempt at a cocky swagger was anemic compared with Travolta's. The only one who hit the mark immediately was Ana Gasteyer as the principal.My girlfriend and I said, let's give it 10 minutes, but after a solid performance of Summer Nights that vocally matched the movie and had some cute, bleachers-based choreography, we committed to finishing it out, and wound up enjoying ourselves.Overall this is a very solid movie. While Tveit never quite fills Travolta's oversized shoes, Julianne Hough perfectly fits Newton-John's tinier ones, singing just as well and dancing better. Vanessa Hudgens almost matches the brilliant Stockard Channing, and does a beautiful job on There are Worse Things I Could Do. The movie adds some unrealistic but still welcome diversity to the cast. The show adds back some things lost from the original musical, including at least one number.There are just a few glaring flaws. First off, following the movie's tradition of adding a few pop songs, Carly Rae Jepson's Frenchie gets a new song that is less objectionable for being musically out of place than for just not being a very good song. Boys II Men ruin Beauty School Dropout with overly embellished singing that destroys the witty lyrics ("beau-ooo-ooty scho-ol dro-o-op-ou-ou-ou-out ..."). DNCE is awful as the rock band at the dance, sounding just like a bad high school dance band mainly because the singer has no feel for the music and keeps biting into the lyrics.Still, overall this was a very entertaining, if overlong, production of a classic musical. It can't beat the movie, but for a younger generation who thinks of Travolta as the crazy old scientology guy and Newton-John as "who?", it's probably preferable.

I was a teenager in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, so many things in the Grease movie or this stage presentation bring back good memories. Like the drive-in movie theaters on weekends ("who watches the movie?") or the student dances. Not to mention all the 1950s attire for the school kids. All very authentic. However the gangs and street racing are a bit exaggerated. Still it makes for good entertainment.Following the lead of NBC which started yearly live televised productions with "Sound of Music" then a couple of others in subsequent years, this is a live TV presentation on the studio back lot and large sound stages. Not only do they not try to hide this, the presentation both opens and closes with production numbers highlighting the use of back lot and sound stage. All in all it works very well and is very entertaining.They make good use of well-known TV and teen movie personalities and pop singers, and it helps that they are good singers. Julianne Hough is no Olivia Newton-John but she is vocally well-suited to the role of Sandy. Aaron Tveit is a more accomplished singer than Travolta was at that age and is good as Danny Zuko. My favorite is Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo, showing that she is not only a pretty face but put a lot of sass in the role and vocally is outstanding. We all know the story, Sandy and Danny meet over the summer before senior year, Danny is a real sweet person but when they meet up at the same school he starts to be the tough guy to impress his friends. The story arc is to see how they will end up together at the end.I watched it as a replay, without commercials, on Netflix streaming.

Literally ruined the original Grease for me. I completely despised this and wish it never came out. I had to watch the REAL Grease almost 20 times to get this crap out of my head. The songs were not as good and all of the acting was horrible. I admit Keke Palmer has an amazing voice but she can not act to save her life. All of the actors seemed "To pure to be pink" and just could not pull off this show. They should have cast actors who had a persona that did not come from Nickelodeon or Disney Channel. Clearly nobody better auditioned for this so they had to scrape the bottom on the can to get someone who could. I barely made it through "Summer Nights" without wanting to puke up on myself. Next time don't remake a musical that set way to high of standard, on second thought just do remake it at all.

This is the fist time I have watched this since seeing the original one with Travolta many (too many) years ago.I thought it was very well choreographed and was in keeping with the original in many ways.It is something that no matter how young or old you are you will always find yourself tapping along with the songs and even singing them if you know them.A must watch for anyone, especially the "younger" generations as this shows just how good movies used to be before all the newer CGI inputs.Thanks you to all those that made this version possible JL