Hoping for a big break as a dancer, Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) hitchhikes her way to Vegas, where she’s forced to strip to make ends meet. She eventually does catch a break, securing a spot as a performer in the city’s glitziest piece of adult entertainment, but the behind-the-scenes backstabbing makes the seediness and exploitation of her lap-dancing past look glamorous by comparison.

CRITIQUE

I refuse to believe Joe Eszterhas and Paul Verhoeven had serious intentions with this movie. I think Showgirls is their way of giving the finger to all of those people who described Basic Instinct as misogynist, homophobic porn. It’s like when Brian De Palma had had enough of the invective hurled his way for Dressed to Kill and Scarface and made Body Double, giving his critics a double-dose of everything they didn’t want. It’s simple one-upmanship: somebody accuses you of doing something, so you actually go out and do it--and do it big--just to spite them; they then get all up in arms about and you have a laugh.

Everything that Basic Instinct may or may not have been is amplified in Showgirls, with the movie going so far it has a chance of offending those who didn’t get why some people got their knickers in a twist over Instinct, decrying its sex and violence and/or looking for some sort of subtext in what’s really nothing more than a pulp tale done to a turn.

There’s certainly no need to look for any sort of subtext--or anything at all, really--in Showgirls. I know Eszterhas has described it as an old-fashioned morality tale, but nothing Eszterhas (who reportedly wrote the synopsis for the movie--a synopsis for which he was paid two millions dollars--on a cocktail napkin) says can be taken seriously.

No, this was just Eszterhas and Verhoeven’s way of getting paid to be as nasty and disreputable as they wanted to be, as well as an excuse for the latter to order women to disrobe for twelve hours a day. They did it, they make a boatload of cash, they got a lot of press, and then they sat back and watched the money men take a bath when the movie’s final take ended up being somewhere in the neighborhood of half its budget. They didn’t give a damn--they got paid, so what the hell? And they got virtually every major news outlet in the country to devote time and/or space to their little joke. Suckers!

For what it’s worth, I’m not sure if the movie is bad as its reputation would have you believe. Yes, it’s an awful movie, but is it one of the worst movies ever made? I don’t know. It’s not pretentious (although I can see how it could be misread and deemed pretentious), nor is it completely inept. It’s an awful movie made by a truly talented directed, and while truly talented filmmakers have a tendency to fail spectacularly, their spectacular failures generally aren’t as bad as something made by someone who has absolutely no business even trying to make a movie. Let’s be honest here--as bad as Showgirls is, it’s not as bad as your average Uwe Boll flick, nor is it as bad as something like The Room.

This movie is an utter disaster as far as writing (the plot is hackneyed, the characters unlikable, the dialogue howlingly bad) and acting go (aside from Gina Gershon, who apparently recognized the script for what it was and decided to go for broke, the cast is terrible), but it doesn’t fail as far as visual storytelling goes; you can follow the action, and shots make sense unto themselves. You may wonder what the hell’s going on in the story, but you won’t be wondering what the hell’s going on in any particular frame.

But at the same time, the movie doesn’t really fall into the so-bad-it’s-good category. Being a Verhoven devotee (even if I weren’t, I’d still give him credit for showing up to accept the Razzie he won for his work on this movie), I’ve owned both previous DVD editions of Showgirls (I even went in for that overpriced box that came with the shot glasses and playing cards), but until viewing it for this review the only time I’d seen the movie in its entirety was back in 1996, when I watched its cable debut.

My reaction this time around was pretty much the same as it was back then: I laughed a few times, I was bored out of my skull much of the time, the nudity and sex are still laughably ridiculous and/or mind-numbingly dull, and I still wish Tiffani-Amber Thiessen had played the lead. (I’m convinced that had Thiessen been cast, the movie would have been a huge hit. I know people who got a charge out of watching Jessica Myrtle Spano shove her fun bits in Kyle MacLachlan’s face, but I know even more people who’d pay enormous sums of money to watch Kelly Kapowski do it [and even more who’d kill their mothers to watch Kelly do it to Jessie, but that’s neither here nor there].)

The movie’s too long and too inert (it’s by far the least energetic Verhoeven flick) to be fun in a good-bad way, and Berkley’s performance is so bad that watching her attempt to emote eventually stops being good for laugh and becomes something more akin to watching a clubbed baby seal take its final breaths. And then there’s that third-act rape scene, which is so atomically, venomously misogynist it makes the second act of True Lies look like the work of Naomi Klein and Camille Paglia. It single-handedly pushes the movie beyond the pale; it’s wrong in every sense of the word, completely unnecessary and presented in such a sick, sadistic manner that anything Eszterhas and Verhoeven say in its defense cannot be taken as anything other than pure bullshit. There’s no element of parody here, no one thumbing of noses at critics and detractors, nor is anyone seeing how far they can push things; there’s just a hatred of women that can’t be defended or ignored.

But I suppose none of this really matters. Showgirls has a fervent cult following, and nothing I--or anyone--say can possibly sway members. I can’t imagine anyone out there is unsure if this movie for them, looking for input as to whether or not they should check it out. I’m sure you’ve already seen it and liked it (for whatever reason), seen it and hated it, or have no desire to see it; I don’t think there’s a fourth category when it comes to this movie. All that matters when it comes to this release is the presentation, so let’s just cut to the chase and get to the technical stuff.

THE VIDEO

The 2.35:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--looks very good, particularly when you take into account what a nightmare this movie must have been to telecine and encode properly. The color palette is rife with bright neons and garish pastels, which are often pumped up to ridiculous extremes; this causing some bleeding, but it’s minor. Detail is very impressive, even in shots that are bathed in overbearing primaries. There’s also a nice sheen of fine grain in the image, which never looks digital or noisy.

THE AUDIO

Relatively speaking, the sound design is as gaudy as the visuals. This disc’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is loud and noisy, fueled by a bass-heavy score (courtesy of the Eurythmics’ David A. Stewart). The surrounds are constantly pumping out directional effects (which are surprisingly plentiful), music, and some mild atmosphere. All of that horrible dialogue comes through cleanly and clearly. The track’s naturally not as impressive, seamless, or immersive as more recent offerings, but so be it. English,

French, and Spanish Dolby Surround tracks are also included. English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

I hope I’m not jinxing it, but it looks like MGM has dropped their practice of releasing combination bare-bones Blu-rays/features-laden standard-def DVDs packages, as the actual Blu-ray disc here comes complete with the following:

The commentary by David Schmader, an expert on Showgirls lore (that must look impressive on a résumé), has been lauded by many, who see it as the perfect combination of genuinely affectionate and savagely brutal, but it struck me as one long joke I didn’t find particularly funny.

Pole Dancing: Finding Your Inner Stripper (10 minutes, HD), the only supplement exclusive to this Blu-ray release, features comments (and plugs) from a couple of the masterminds behind the pole-dancing-as-exercise movement.

The Lap Dance Tutorial Featuring the World-Famous Girls of Scores (5 minutes, SD) is self-explanatory (and just as dumb as you think).

The Showgirls Fact-Up Trivia track provides pop-up text pieces that offer behind-the-scenes info and facts about the world of exotic dancing.

A Showgirls Diary (12 minutes, SD) is a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Closing things out is the movie’s theatrical trailer (which is presented in high-def).

A standard-def DVD copy of the movie (which appears to be the same DVD that came in the box set and was later released in stand-alone form; the artwork has been changed, but the content’s the same) is also included.

The DVD includes most of the above supplements, omitting only the Pole Dancing featurette. It also includes a video commentary (in keeping with the in-joke theme of several of the other extras, the participants are real-life strippers), which for some reason wasn’t ported over to the Blu-ray (although it’s not much of a loss).

FINAL THOUGHTS