there with us—the crucial element that has been missing from so many Britney shows of late." August Brown of the Los Angeles Times stated that "the Femme Fatale tour gets its drama by largely erasing — or at least tweaking — the past. [...] Spears manipulates pop's virgin–whore complex better than just about anyone, and her seamless sweep from lasciviously grinding on an awestruck dude from the audience to the earnest balladry of 'Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know' [...] felt true to the sweep of her career — she learned that she can control the narrative by vanishing into a club's heat or into literal thin air." Matt Kivel of Variety commented, "Though visually impressive, the show lacked a truly engaging human quality. Spears moved with an almost mechanical detachment, lightly shifting through dance routines without fully letting her body release itself. With her voice heavily processed and laden with backing tracks, she appeared onstage as some strange blend of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Kraftwerk's Ralf and Florian." However, Jam! Canoe considered the show was "best described as Janet Jackson-like." Steve Palopoli of Metro Silicon Valley said, "Musically, the show is heavy on the hits, although considering Britney as a musical phenomenon is like asking which of Madonna's albums is best. She's a cultural phenomenon, obviously, and the only edicts that seem to have been handed down in regards to the music is 'no lip-synching' (she definitely doesn't) and 'bigger and louder whenever possible.'" Shirley Halperin of The Hollywood Reporter stated it was "entertaining", but Spears "doesn’t quite have that spring in her dance step anymore and who requires a constant barrage of visual distractions while she mostly lip-synchs along to her hits". Jim Harrington of the Oakland Tribune deemed the show as "a mess pretty much from start to finish. The theatrics are awkward and confusing, the dance routines are numbingly bland and old-hat, the song selection is weak and misguided, and Britney's star power, so blinding on tours past, is remarkably dim." Alexis Petridis of The Guardian gave the show two stars out of five, saying that "there's a suspicion that the kind of person who goes to see Britney Spears live isn't really there for the music or her sparkling personality: tonight she seems as dead-eyed and distant as ever. What they're interested in is proximity to a global celebrity." Neil McCormick of The