54
Miramax Films | Release Date: August 28, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
33
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
9
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
An entertaining and surprisingly serious look at the infamous New York discotheque, with a genuine nostalgia for the late '70s and early '80s. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Too often, the film is more like a soundtrack with visuals than a well constructed, fully developed motion picture. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's a noble effort, but aficionados and the mildly interested are recommended to seek out VH-1's excellent Studio 54 documentary in lieu of this shallow morality play. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverM. V. Moorhead
In the end narration, Shane gripes that the new corporate owners who took over Studio 54 after Rubell and Schrager's crash made the club "safe and boring." But that's exactly what Christopher has done to 54. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Amusing and holds interest largely thanks to its re-creation of a glitzy, flamboyant era, not to mention its soundtrack of disco songs that sound a lot better today than 20 years ago. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
All glitz, no glory. [7 September 1998]
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
"Saturday Night Fever" with designer drugs and duds. Read full review
50
VarietyEmanuel Levy
Director Mark Christopher gives the picture a brisk pace and a colorful, party-like mood that makes the experience painless and sporadically even enjoyable. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The movie is almost completely uninteresting on the story level but fascinating as a work of imagined reconstruction and anthropology and as a study of the theory and practice of Studio 54. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
There's a glimmer of what the film might have been, though, in the performance of Mike Myers, who plays Studio co-owner Steve Rubell, with his sweaty thinning hair and look-at-me-I-got-class Lacoste shirts, as a vengeful gargoyle presiding over a kingdom of beauty he can rule but never join. Read full review
40
EmpireCaroline Westbrook
It looks attractive, and is enlivened somewhat by the soundtrack's obligatory disco dinosaurs, but those expecting any real insight into the 70s club scene will come away hugely disappointed. Read full review
30
Film ThreatRita Tennyson
The movie does a great job of capturing the excessive behavior and the fun that was had but it falls short in delivering a realistic picture of lives after the party ends. Christopher, like Rubell, is into giving his audience escape, not reality. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
The film's sole redeeming facet is Mike Myers' rich, multilayered performance as Rubell: Simultaneously repulsive and charming, hedonistic and oddly paternal, Myers steals every scene he's in. It's a great performance that deserves to be in a much better film. Read full review
30
SalonCharles Taylor
It's a flat, clumsy piece of filmmaking. When Phillippe and Ward are in bed, the shots are so badly matched that I believed they were having sex, just not with each other. Read full review
30
The New YorkerBruce Diones
Mike Myers plays Steve Rubell as the druggy epicenter of Studio 54, and his performance gives director Mark Christopher's soapy morality tale its only moments of wanton, hedonistic spirit. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
There are easily 54 reasons to dis 54, but let's start and finish with the obvious: The script plays like a proud offering from the lead hand at the Cliché Factory. Read full review
25
San Francisco ExaminerJane Ganahl
Offers nothing new, and a lot less. It's a hollow shell of a film, rife with plot twists that go nowhere. Read full review
20
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
If it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where this maladroit drama about the infamous New York discotheque went wrong, it's because everything in the film is lousy: The writing, the directing, the acting, the casting (Neve Campbell?), the moral posturing, the Capote clone, the Andy lookalike, even the glitter that clings to Salma Hayek's lashes like tears. Read full review
20
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Decadence has rarely looked so pathetic, lethargic and dispiriting as it does in this listless film. Read full review
20
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Years from now, if Mark Christopher's timid, meandering film 54 is spoken of at all, it will probably be lumped together with Whit Stillman's ''Last Days of Disco'' as one of two movies released in 1998 to bungle the same opportunity. Read full review
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