42nd Street Meets Flashdance

By RICHARD CORLISS

STAYING ALIVE Directed by Sylvester Stallone Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone and Norman Wexler

It sounded like a match made in show business heaven. John Travolta: instant superstar when he strode down a Brooklyn sidewalk, the white-suited knight in a grungy Camelot, as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever; consolidation of stardom in Grease and Urban Cowboy; a sensitive actor with a stud's lean physique. Sylvester Stallone: instant superstar when he laced up his gloves and socked it to the champ for the full 15 in Rocky; consolidation of stardom in Rockys II and III, which he directed as well as wrote, mixing sentimental bravura with slam-bang action sequences. And who was Tony Manero anyway but Rocky Balboa with faster feet? You've seen one athletic, inarticulate, sweet-souled Italian American, you've seen 'em both. And so the deal was made: pair Travolta and Stallone for a sequel beyond all sequels, a refreshed Saturday Night Fever that would take Tony out of Bay Ridge and put him up against the best Manhattan has to offer. Broadway! Dancin'! Cross-cultural amour! Local boy hits big time! If he can make it there, he'll make it anywhere . . .

Staying Alive doesn't make it anywhere: not as character study, not as an ersatz Chorus Line, not even as a canny exploitation of the good will engendered by Saturday Night Fever. Six years after Tony crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into the city of everyone's tattered dreams, he is stuck in a rut just off Broadway, teaching jazz dance by day, tending bar at night. Encouraged by his palfriend Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes), Tony auditions for the chorus of a musical called Satan's Alley--a sort of rock musical comedy version of Dante's Inferno--and falls for Laura, the show's star (Finola Hughes). Tony gets the job because, as the musical's choreographer tells him, "you have anger and a certain intensity. And that's what I need to make this show work." Sure enough, by opening night Tony has the starring role. The youngster impulsively turns the final duet into a solo and comes back a star.

As always, Travolta is urban gorgeous and very charming. The rest of the film is neither. It brandishes the New York look, where every man needs a shave, and every woman a Porcelana rubdown. The Satan's Alley production numbers, full of grinding pelvises, heavy metaphors and a climactic ascending platform, have all the pretensions of Cats or a Bob Fosse musical but with none of the spirited style; this show would never get to previews. Stallone seems not to have noticed or cared. He heads off in opposite directions--toward 42nd Street and Flashdance Avenue--and loses himself in the contradictions. With the exception of one rehearsal sequence, feverishly edited to Brother Frank Stallone's catchy Far from Over, the movie brings neither kick nor context to its song track (including five new ones by the Bee Gees). The raunchy zest of Tony's family feuds in the first film turns flat as a '50s malted here: he and his mother are soulful as saints. Most important, the movie lacks the naive vitality that seduced moviegoers to strut out of the theaters in 1978 and strut right back in again. Staying Alive begs every question but one: Can a movie close on opening day?

--By Richard Corliss This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.