You’ve got (more) male
MAGIC Mike XXL is a vastly different movie to its predecessor.
The original film, which came out in 2012, was directed by Steven Soderbergh and rose well above its expected level of simple beefcake.
Oh sure, there was plenty of rippling muscled manly action in there, but Soderbergh, along with writer Reid Carolin and star Channing Tatum, delivered a surprisingly dark, melancholy and affecting drama about a guy torn between two paths in life.
While Soderbergh remains on board as the executive producer for this sequel, the job of directing is handed over to Gregory Jacobs, and while the film has some shades of Soderbergh’s grim reality, in the hands of Jacobs its overall tone is much more lighthearted, almost playful.
Sadly, it is also a lot lighter on the rich, character-driven drama of the original — but hey, you probably didn’t come for that, right?
Magic Mike XXL picks up three years after the first movie. Mike (Tatum) has left the stripping life behind to follow his dream of designing, making and selling his own furniture. It’s hard work, but he’s making it happen. Then one day, as tends to happen in the movies, he gets a phone call from the guys in his old stripping troupe.
They’re getting the band back together for one final hurrah, a trip to the annual Stripper Convention (is that really a thing?) at Myrtle Beach, Georgia, and they want to give the performance of their lives.
After briefly wondering whether it’s a good idea or not, Mike says to hell with it, and jumps on board the bus with the others.
There isn’t really much more to the story than that. It’s not really even worth calling it a road trip movie, because so little of it revolves around their journey on the road.
It’s not much more than a series of incidents and vignettes stitched together with the common theme of “bunch of strippers on their way to a convention”. And that’s fine, really. The dance/strip routines are just marvellous, for one thing. Who cares if they’re just a little bit gratuitous when they’re THIS good?
Yes, they’re sleazy and dirty as hell, but they are all performed and filmed with such a sense of fun and playfulness that you just can’t help but have a laugh and enjoy the show.
And there is also something interesting going on here in terms of women being in control.
There is a heavy emphasis on the various ways these guys serve women, from the more obvious end of the spectrum such as dancing for dollar bills, through to the more tender, such as trying to make women feel beautiful, desired, and strong.
Yeah, I know that probably sounds weird — it’s a flick about men getting their clothes off, for Pete’s sake — but just take my word on this one.
It’s actually a little bit lovely, with a few beautifully written scenes that reveal a lot about the mechanics of self-esteem on both sides of this transaction.
And there is a strong theme of personal honesty running through the story, of being true to yourself, recognising who you are and what you want to do, and not apologising for it.
In some ways, it is a kind of antidote to the first film’s suggestions that maybe stripping is not a career someone should aspire to.
There is no shaming going on in this sequel, it is all about how some jobs just stay in your blood forever and make you happy, and maybe that is a good thing.
“Follow your dream, become a stripper” might not be a moral finding its way into any Disney movies any time soon, but in the context of Magic Mike XXL, it is a point very well made.
The acting performances are all excellent here, with every character allowed to develop into a very believable and textured personality. This is not just a cast of cliches, they are all people first, strippers second. Just like in real life, really. Jada Pinkett Smith is a real standout, though, as the bold and raunchy Rome, the operator of a “subscription service” club that offers erotic entertainment for women that seeks to empower the women.
She calls her punters “Queens”, and they are treated as such. And her impassioned onstage speeches are incredibly stirring.
There is a lot to like here, really. Storywise, Magic Mike XXL is not as strong as its predecessor, there are a few drawn-out dialogues that could be tightened up, and the tonal shift from gritty drama to drama/comedy is quite stark, but it actually feels like a very fitting closing chapter to the story.
And yeah, there’s a lot of perfectly sculpted men dancing. What’s not to like, right? Magic Mike XXL is now showing at Village Cinemas and Cmax rated MA. RATING: