FILM REVIEW: SHOWGIRLS 2

Penny/Helga (Rena Riffel) in Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven.

Bore to culture

 

By John Esther

 

The follow-up to the notorious 1995, Showgirls, Showgirls 2: Penny’s from Heaven is actually better than its predecessor insofar as the original was not made to be the laughingstock, cult movie it has become whereas Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven is intentionally, unabashedly bad in order to satire wannabe movie stars, the entertainment industry and yes, its predecessor. In other words, it is so bad it is good.

 

Somewhat reprising her role from the original film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas (one of the worst Hollywood screenwriters ever), Rena Riffel wrote and directed this story about a Las Vegas stripper named Penny (Riffel -- now old enough to play an aging showgirl) who dreams of moving to Hollywood and becoming the star of a new dance show. Penny has no talent, formal training. or “X Factor,” but that is not going to stop this “whore,” “slut,” “trash,” “stripper,” and “bimbo” from making it.

 

However, just getting to Los Angeles is not easy. On the road west, Penny is robbed, then entangled in a multiple homicide.

 

Once in Los Angeles, Penny meets all sorts of egomaniacs, abusers, exploiters and television producers (but I repeat myself) who just want Penny, whose new name (sometimes) is Helga, for her flesh. Yet the whore with a heart of gold still believes in herself and those around her – no matter how many times they use her. Meanwhile, the authorities are on her track.

 

Deliberately pumped with histrionics, painstaking inane dialogue, soap operatic Sapphic sexual scenes, and editorial discontinuity that are outrageously tongue-in-cheek(s), the 145-minute film -- which definitely takes its toll on one’s patience (occasionally one’s feminism, too) -- makes the films of John Waters look like the work of Michelangelo Antonioni. Okay, I exaggerate for the billionth time, but so does just about everything in this hyperbolic striptease of wannabe stardom in Hollywood to make its point.