cult film freak: OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN & JOHN TRAVOLTA IN 'TWO OF A KIND'

Olivia Newton-John Travolta in TWO OF A KIND Year: 1983 Rating: ***

Iconic GREASE stars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John turned down reprising their roles in the sequel because of a bad script, and yet they chose the bizarre TWO OF A KIND instead, a romantic comedy involving guardian angels...

Including Charles Durning and Scatman Crothers who, to save Earth from God voiced by Gene Hackman, must prove that the randomly selected John Travolta, as a bank robbing inventor, could risk everything for equally broke bank teller Olivia Newton-John, pulling off what Elliott Gould did to Christopher Plummer in THE SILENT PARTNER: keeping the money the crook reportedly stole...

Olivia Newton-John in TWO OF A KIND

Yet the best scenes involve John and John before they fall in love, keeping desperate and busy in the desperately busy New York City, which isn't funny for a comedy but is entertaining, even adventurous as the in-debt Travolta has mobsters on his tail while she's dealing with a randy landlord and, in real life the Australian singer wanted to improve her acting chops so a drama workshop sequence is included — and she absolutely nails it...

But halfway through the movie derails when... as fitfully cast Oliver Reed plays Old Scratch vs our heavenly hosts... the movie actually rewinds and fast-forwards, doubling and even tripling the often torturous run-time: yet when the pair (backed by Olivia's catchy TWIST OF FATE) become an actual couple, TWO OF A KIND regains for the suspenseful resolution to matter... just enough to forget the stuff that's so outlandish it all seems normal, somehow.