Showgirls

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Who knew such a seamy swim in the misogynistic swill of life could be so entertaining?

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

What matters much more than the story or the Spicy Stuff is the dancing, the show-biz dancing. It's electric. Exciting. And there's lots of it. [23 Oct 1995]

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As Nomi, Elizabeth Berkley has exactly two emotions -- hot and bothered -- but her party-doll blowsiness works for the picture.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

If the plot and screenplay are juvenile, the production values are first-rate, and the lead performance by newcomer Elizabeth Berkley has a fierce energy that's always interesting.

Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel

The film's big lap-dance sequence is impressive, however, if only for the sheer athleticism of Elizabeth Berkley's contortion. Later, when she pulls the same stunt in a swimming pool, we recognize the show for what it is--a male fantasy film in which the women are little more than rag dolls. [22 Sept 1995]

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

In its depiction of the Las Vegas nightclub scene and in its own cinematic strategies, the film is quite instructive about the intersection of sex, money, and entertainment in some areas of popular American culture. [29 Sept 1995]

TV Guide Harlan Jacobson

After an onslaught of prerelease hype promising the erotic experience of a lifetime, Showgirls reveals itself as a 131-minute dose of cinematic saltpeter.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

To take Showgirls that seriously (as either trash-art or appalling pornography) wouldn't be worth the exertion.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

What's completely baffling is that everyone in the film thinks Nomi is one heck of a dancer, even though her one move -- throwing her arms out stiffly -- is straight out of "Dr. Strangelove."

Washington Post Rita Kempley

This film is just a coarser, dumber, smuttier remake of the 1983 Eszterhas-penned "Flashdance," throbbing music, working-class Cinderella and all.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This film is like a shiny, red apple that's rotten to the core -- despite slick direction and a glossy sheen, it reeks of decay. Showgirls isn't a good drama, a good thriller, or even good pornography.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Impossibly vulgar, tawdry and coarse, this much-touted major studio splash into NC-17 waters is akin to being keelhauled through a cesspool, with sharks swimming alongside.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

The film makers had declared they were bravely exploring new levels of licentiousness, but the biggest risk they've taken here is making a nearly $40 million movie without anyone who can act. The absence of both drama and eroticism turns Showgirls into a bare-butted bore. [22 Sept 1995]

Time Richard Corliss

Obscene level of incompetence, excessive inanity in the story line, gross negligence of the viewer's intelligence, a prurient interest in the quick buck. [2 Oct 1995]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

There's nothing even mildly intriguing, or remotely galvanizing, about Showgirls.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The cynicism of the writer and director smacks of such self-hatred (fully acknowledged in the film's closing shot) that their disgust spills over onto all their characters (and their audience too), and inasmuch as everybody here is one kind of whore or another at virtually every moment, the fine moral distinctions this movie insists on making sometimes seem about as arcane and as loony as medieval theology about angels dancing on the heads of pins.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The story is so shabbily built that it can make no valid claim to motives other than the filmmakers' mercenary desires to cash in on the public's prurient interests. And even on this bottom-feeder level, Showgirls fails to deliver the goods.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

That Berkley cannot act is indisputable. But her dancing looks like a seizure.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Lacking the combustible Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas in leading roles, Showgirls descends into incoherent tedium. Though the filmmakers' incessant talk about vision, artistry and honest self-expression lead one to expect a sexually explicit biopic about the Dalai Lama, what is in fact provided is depressing and disappointing as well as dehumanizing.