Box office The film debuted at number three at the US box office behind
Platoon and
Outrageous Fortune, grossing $6 million over the four-day
President's Day weekend, surpassing the other opener,
Over the Top starring
Sylvester Stallone. To date, the film has grossed a total of $42.7 million in the United States and Canada.
Critical response On
Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 20% based on 40 reviews and an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's consensus states: "
Mannequin is a real dummy, outfitted with a ludicrous concept and a painfully earnest script that never springs to life, despite the best efforts of an impossibly charming Kim Cattrall." On
Metacritic, the film has a score of 21 out of 100 based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by
CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+ on scale of A to F. It was savaged by
Leonard Maltin, who called it "absolute rock-bottom fare, dispiriting for anyone who remembers what movie comedy should be". In his print review,
Roger Ebert awarded it a half star and wrote, "A lot of bad movies are fairly throbbing with life.
Mannequin is dead. The wake lasts 1 1/2 hours, and then we can leave the theater." Rita Kempley of
The Washington Post called the film "made by, for, and about dummies".
Janet Maslin of
The New York Times puts the blame on the writer-director: "as co-written and directed by Michael Gottlieb,
Mannequin is a state-of-the-art showcase of perfunctory technique". Dan McQuade, writing in
Philadelphia Magazine, referencing the film's use of Philadelphia as a setting, panned the film and wrote, "The message of
Mannequin, clumsy as it is, is that the greatest place and time in recorded history is 1980s Philadelphia... Truly, this is the most uplifting film ever made about the city." David Cornelius of
DVD Talk wrote: "
Mannequin is one of the stupidest movies ever conceived, and one of the worst. Which makes it, in its own lousy way, mesmerizing. To watch it is to get sucked in by its hypnotic ways; its very off-the-wall shoddiness is astounding.
Spader alone is worth the price of admission – surely aware of the movie's badness, the actor hams it up with a deliriously over-the-top performance." He called it "a Bad Movie Essential" but warned viewers with a lower pain threshold for bad films to "obviously skip it as it is a dreadful film". Though initially poorly received,
Mannequin has been cited as a romantic comedy cult classic and has managed to garner an ardent and strong
cult following; its fans have praised the film's sets, costumes, supporting cast, script, and the romantic chemistry between lead actors McCarthy and Cattrall. The film is considered one of the many popular comedy films from the golden age of 1980s
Brat Pack films because it features actors Spader, Cattrall, and McCarthy who all starred in other movies of that era. Retrospective reviews have also commended the provocative and progressive portrayal of Hollywood Montrose (
Meshach Taylor) for being an unashamedly positive
homosexual character who befriends the main character and manages to be heroic in the finale.
Accolades ==Home media==