larger, funnier, wittier and more imaginative-than-Hollywood movie with a life that is all its own"; Canby pointed out that the film was "somewhat in the manner of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which recalls the science-fiction films of the '50s in a manner more elegant and more benign than anything that was ever made then, Grease is a multimillion-dollar evocation of the B-picture quickies that Sam Katzman used to turn out in the '50s (Don't Knock the Rock, 1956) and that American International carried to the sea in the 1960s (Beach Party, 1963)." Gene Siskel gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "exciting only when John Travolta is on the screen" but still recommending it to viewers, adding, "Four of its musical numbers are genuine showstoppers that should bring applause." Variety praised the "zesty choreography and very excellent new plus revived music", and thought Travolta and Newton-John "play together quite well." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was negative, writing, "I didn't see Grease onstage, but on the testimony of this strident, cluttered, uninvolving and unattractive movie, it is the '50s—maybe the last innocent decade allowed to us—played back through a grotesquely distorting '70s consciousness." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post also panned the film, writing, "Despite the obvious attempts to recall bits from Stanley Donen musicals or Elvis Presley musicals or Frankie-and-Annette musicals, the spirit is closer to the New Tastelessness exemplified by Ken Russell, minus Russell's slick visual style ... I've never seen an uglier large-scale musical." David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, "Too often, Grease is simply mediocre, full of broad high-school humor, flat dramatic scenes and lethargic pacing. Fortunately, there's nothing flat about John Travolta ... Travolta can't dominate this movie as he did Fever, but when he's on screen you can't watch anyone else." Retrospective reviews have generally been positive. In a 1998 review, Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "an average musical, pleasant and upbeat and plastic." He found John Travolta's Elvis Presley–inspired performance to be the highlight, but felt that Grease "sees the material as silly camp." In 2018, Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian gave it 5 out of 5 stars, saying "It's still a sugar-rush of a film." Grease was voted the best musical ever on Channel 4's 100 greatest musicals in 2004. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 76% approval