The words Magic Mike may conjure up images of sweaty, sculpted, undulating men, dancing unthreateningly for hoards of screaming women, but there has always been a backdrop of brutal economic reality looming over the fantasy world.
The unlikely franchise has explored the escalating devaluation of physical laborers, the suffocating effects of the college industrial complex, predatory loan businesses, recession and even COVID-19, which has effectively destroyed poor Mike Lane鈥檚 furniture business in this latest film.
When we re-meet Channing Tatum鈥檚 gentle hunk in 鈥� ,鈥� in theaters Friday, he鈥檚 bartending at parties for the very rich in Miami. The gig could be worse, but though he doesn鈥檛 quite say it, the implication is that he鈥檚 even aged out of dancing now. He has to seriously think about it when his wealthy employer offers him $6,000 for a dance later that evening.
Asking why sequels exist doesn鈥檛 usually produce satisfying answers, but 鈥淢agic Mike鈥檚 Last Dance鈥� is a film that was born backwards, a fit of inspiration from Steven Soderbergh after seeing what Tatum had done with Magic Mike Live. The Las Vegas stage show, inspired by the first two movies, is described on its website as 鈥渁n unforgettably fun night of sizzling, 360-degree entertainment,鈥� 鈥渉ot,鈥� 鈥渉ilarious,鈥� 鈥渢he great time you鈥檝e been looking for鈥� and 鈥渢he ultimate girl鈥檚 night out.鈥�
But 鈥淢agic Mike鈥檚 Last Dance鈥� is not quite any of those things and perhaps might even annoy some of its most enthusiastic fans 鈥� the ones who simply want to holler at the six-packs in front of them. Because this film is that thing that many sequels promise but don鈥檛 deliver on: It鈥檚 both a true evolution and a conclusion. It鈥檚 also part fantasy, part bleak reality, part commentary the fundamental value of dance and what鈥檚 lost in a society that has forgotten how. It is not, in other words, simply another striptease.
鈥淢agic Mike鈥� and 鈥淴XL鈥� (directed by Gregory Jacobs) both latched on to a kind of pure joy in the spectacle of the male stripper. But that audience, by nature of its venues, is inherently limited and 鈥渄own market.鈥� In 鈥淟ast Dance,鈥� Soderbergh gives Mike a wealthy benefactor, in the form of the operatically named Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek) who is in the midst of a messy divorce from an obscenely successful media mogul and looking to shake things up.
After an acrobatic, but fully clothed, encounter with Mike, she decides to whisk him away to London, dress him up and put him in charge of staging a show that promises to make its audiences feel the way she did the night she met Mike. In the process, she, and Soderbergh, Tatum and screenwriter Reid Carolin, set a historic London theater, and all of its fussy rules, ablaze (figuratively). If only all scorned socialites could do something so charitable with their rage.
It鈥檚 a clever conceit for a filmmaker who never tires of singeing the establishment he continues work in. And like many Soderbergh films, 鈥淢agic Mike鈥檚 Last Dance,鈥� shaggy, earnest and innocently tawdry, goes down so easy that it鈥檚 almost impossible to appreciate it fully on a first watch. I imagine it will only improve with more.
If there is a quibble, it鈥檚 that Hayek and Tatum don鈥檛 quite inspire the will-they-won鈥檛-they tension that the movie seems to be asking of them. They work well together when they鈥檙e working together, but the romantic chemistry is a bit lacking. Besides, his great unrequited love isn't a person but his furniture business, right? It doesn't help that Maxandra is also an extremely underdeveloped character.
Even so, Mike manages to wrest an inspired dance in the rain out of the idea of them (his co-dancer is Kylie Shea) that pays homages to classic movie musicals with just a bit more skin and writhing.
This story is told like a fairy tale, or a poetically composed school paper from a particularly precocious student, with a silky voiced young narrator telling us about Mike鈥檚 woes and the waning significance of dance in the culture. She鈥檚 not just a disembodied voice, but an important character the story reveals later. But it鈥檚 a lovely little flourish in Mike Lane鈥檚 journey. He鈥檚 a guy who just wants to make furniture but seems destined (or doomed) to continue performing in one way or another. Like his director, he鈥檚 just too good at it to say goodbye forever, no matter how much they both keep trying.
鈥淢agic Mike鈥檚 Last Dance,鈥� a Warner Bros. release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 鈥渟exual material and language.鈥� Running time: 112 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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MPA Definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.
Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press
