Village People - Can't Stop the Music (1980)

8% of critics liked it
(13 reviews)
39% of users liked it
(2,943 ratings)

Glitz producer Allan Carr tries to cash in on the late-'70s disco boom with Can't Stop the Music -- a film of such Brobdingnagian banality that it almost in itself stopped the disco movement cold. Comedienne Nancy Walker directed this musical chronicle, purporting to relate the legend of the… More Glitz producer Allan Carr tries to cash in on the late-'70s disco boom with Can't Stop the Music -- a film of such Brobdingnagian banality that it almost in itself stopped the disco movement cold. Comedienne Nancy Walker directed this musical chronicle, purporting to relate the legend of the formation of the disco group The Village People. Valerie Perrine is Samantha Simpson, a helpful ex-model who attempts to get her roommate, Jack Morrell's (Steve Guttenberg), songwriting career off the ground by assembling a motley group of her Greenwich Village friends (The Village People) together to cut a demo tape of Jack's ditties. All Samantha has to do is charm the square lawyer Ron White (Bruce Jenner) in order to get him to listen to The Village People's scintillating disco strains. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: PG, 2 hr.
Directed By: Nancy Walker
Genres: Musical & Performing Arts, Cult Movies

In Theaters: Jan 1, 1980 Wide
On DVD: Apr 16, 2002

Critic Reviews

Variety Staff, Variety
The Village People, along with ex-Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner, have a long way to go in the acting stakes.
Janet Maslin, New York Times
The unevenness of the acting comes as a kind of blessing, though, since the rest of the movie is so thoroughly homogenized.
Steve Crum, Video-Reviewmaster.com
Please DO stop the music! A '70s disco holdover.
, TV Guide's Movie Guide
This botched affair... goes absolutely nowhere and failed to cause much of a stir with moviegoers who, by the time of its release, were jumping on the disco backlash bandwagon.
Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly
It's tough to believe any movie that opens with Steve Guttenberg dancing on rollerskates could actually get worse from there, but it does -- and in such spectacular fashion!
, Time Out
A wretchedly sub-standard score from Jacques Morali and production numbers of exceptional tackiness round things off.
Nell Minow, Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies
An absolute train wreck of a movie, but viewed as a sort of fevered dream, some hilariously campy moments!
Scott Weinberg, eFilmCritic.com
Points for not calling it "The Village People Movie" -- but not many.
Edward Margulies, Movieline
How bad is this infamous 1980 musical mega-dud? So bad that it stars not, one, not two, but three people who can't sing, dance or act.

Read all 9 critic reviews

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Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

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Featured Audience Ratings

AJ V

A fun, cheesy, musical about the Village People! Whether or not you like the band, if you like fun 80s movies that are a little cheesy, you'll enjoy this movie like I did. Of course, it could be a little better, but it's pretty good.
jay n

Mindnumbingly awful, a LOT of terrible acting, particularly Bruce Jenner, and laugh out loud ridiculous musical numbers but still hypnotic in its hopeless crassness and late 70's-early 80's excess.
Lafe F

Cheesy-as-heck. Not much man-loving goes on. It's mostly a song and dance extravangaza in the 70's style, so don't fear kiddies. Not campy enough to warrant a re-watch.
Cameron J

Almost 20 minutes left in the "film" and the player crashes....good. I guess I found my walk-out movie. This "film" holds underdevelopment, underused characters, poor directing, terrible writing, atrocious acting, bad editing, exaggerated cheesiness, cliches and… More
Almost 20 minutes left in the "film" and the player crashes....good. I guess I found my walk-out movie. This "film" holds underdevelopment, underused characters, poor directing, terrible writing, atrocious acting, bad editing, exaggerated cheesiness, cliches and still more problems. I suppose some of the characters are likeable, but only because there is hardly anything to hate about them, where as the unlikeable characters have little to make them likeable. The characters are paint-by-numbers cheesy cliches that I would liken to drones. As for the music, the soundtrack is pretty dang good, but the musical numbers are painfully forced in and seem to (what am I saying "seem to" for?) go on forever. (I think I blew a fuse when Sam said "One more time." at the end of the "Milk Shake" song) In the end, it was a waste of my time and I thank whatever caused that player to crash. I end by at least saying this: Congradulation on the first Worst Picture Razzie ever, it was well-deserved.