This film would never get made today. At least not with intents this transparent. It serves to glorify Elvis Presley and his embodiment. But back in 1964, these types of B-movies were just accepted. Nowadays teen cinema consists of a post-apocalyptic love triangle. Much more realistic. Not quite as blatant.
Elvis plays Lucky, a race car driver who's in Las Vegas to compete in the Vegas Grand Prix. He needs a new engine but is strapped for cash due to contrived reasons. He falls for Rusty (Ann-Margret) who seems to be abruptly against his racing ways.
This movie is all over the place. About halfway through it becomes disjointed, making it obvious what its purpose is. For a pointless, plotless story, it's way too convoluted.
For an 84 minute film, it takes its sweet time, attempting to thin itself out to cover the short runtime. But then, once it realizes it's home free, the story progresses ridiculously fast and things never get resolved.
Elvis and Ann-Margret have undeniable chemistry, but their depth is almost non-existent. Lucky's motivations are unclear, and Rusty goes from a likable, independent worker woman at the beginning of the film to an incompetent bimbo by the end.
The songs and dance numbers are impressively catchy, but that's all this movie is. The few glamorous Las Vegas shots are nice, but there aren't nearly enough in a movie with the city's name in the title. It almost seems like a blown opportunity to make a cool story about gambling or mobsters. Instead, it's about racing--something few of us think of when talking about Vegas.
It's a dated movie, but that's perhaps the best thing this film has to offer. There are some cool shots of the Vegas of yesteryear. There's one in particular showing the front of the Flamingo as it used to be--alone, with nothing on either side. Contrastingly, we get a shot of Fremont Street in all its garish glory--busy and crowded, sans the 1,500 foot canopy movie screen overhead. While watching this, my fiancée turns to me and says, "You used to be able to drive down Fremont Street???" My, how things have changed.
Twizard Rating: 57
As a whole this film fails at reaching the very low mark of its predecessor in almost every way possible. This Die Hard-inspired comedy "franchise" has now just added a very pointless sequel.
Taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 stars Kevin James as Paul--a bumbling mall cop who takes his job way too seriously. Now he's in Vegas for a security convention where he must stop a heist of the casino.
The entire film takes place within the confines of the Wynn Resort and Casino. There is no galavanting around the strip or hopping from casino to casino--so the should-be glamorous Vegas element is very glamourless.
As flippant as the first film is, this one adds insensitivity to the equation. The movie starts out by picking up where we left Blart last in his life--when he gets married. But we find out that his wife leaves him after 6 days. This is a character we really grow to like in the previous film and love the fact that she seems to adore Paul regardless of his clumsy ways. And then Paul's mom--whom he lives with--dies by getting run over by a milk truck. This is all supposed to be funny, but instead it's a jarring beginning for the few fans of the first film.
Overall, it's much of the same criticisms from the its predecessor, except more. There are maybe 3 solid laughs in the whole movie--but the rest of the jokes fall flat and are yawn-worthy. However, those 3 laughs may be bigger than the biggest laughs from the first film. Although in the first film there were way more of them. In this one, the highlight may be the bird-attack scene--which is played off to its brightest potential and gets the biggest laugh. One of Paul's cohorts is a security guard named Khan (Shelly Desai) who had most of the other laughs, but was grossly underutilized in this movie.
At least, in the end, there is a redeeming value to all of this. But then again, we could've just watched the first film twice.
Twizard Rating: 59
Nomi is watching Cristal from the audience for the first time. She mimics some of Cristal's hand motions perfectly. She gets it! I'm excited! …Those are the types of transparent notions that this film is hoping to pass along to its audience. The aspects of Showgirls that are most laughable aren't the things on the screen, but the blatant expectations of the filmmakers that what they present will evoke certain emotions from us. This is why there is no shortage of drama in Showgirls. It's induced at every possible moment, constantly trying to make us react--like a soap opera…or a Tyler Perry film.
But exploited drama isn't the only cancer in this movie. Besides the distractingly jarring and clanking dialogue, the most annoying aspect is Nomi herself. She's so fragile and bipolar, like the crazy girl your friend dated while you questioned why he stayed with her for a year. Her emotions are so up and down that it becomes annoying and almost insulting to her gender. The character is written as though she is supposed to have a chip on her shoulder, but then she has the confidence of an olympic athlete. She is our main protagonist, yet she's so unlikeable that you're not even rooting for her. In fact, you don't know who you're really rooting for at all--I guess the ending?? None of the characters' motives make any sense and are ridiculously inconsistent. Nobody is set in stone. Even Molly, the only one who doesn't really do anything wrong, sees her best friend and trailer-mate (who apparently she doesn't know very well) obviously going down a bad path and barely makes any effort to give her support of any kind.
Regardless of everything I've said so far, it's a pretty entertaining bad movie. There's actually a good overarching story here, and if you stick it through, you'll actually appreciate the ending. It might even inspire or teach a lesson now and again. I heard someone say that Showgirls is like the Cocktail of dancing movies. Although I don't like it as much as I like Cocktail, I don't hate this movie. There's something about it that keeps you watching. They wisely (and annoyingly) make you wait until the end to find out about Nomi's past. It all ties in nicely by the time the credits roll.
Twizard Rating: 62
