The magic fades
ONE OF THE GREAT SCENES OF 2023 SADLY LEADS TO A LESS THAN TRIUMPHANT FINALE
MAGIC MIKE’S LAST DANCE (M)
Director: Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight)
Starring: Channing Tatum, Salma Hayek, Jemelia George.
Rating: hhjjj
No longer the best of the undressed
Less than 10 minutes in, it looks for all the world like Magic Mike’s Last Dance will be making all the correct moves required to deliver upon its tagline “take the guilty out of pleasure”.
In what can only be described as the most spectacular unboxing of guy candy ever captured on the big screen, Channing Tatum lustily shakes and quakes in spaces and places that no Richter scale will ever detect.
Perched at the eye of this syncopated tsunami of pressurised pecs, shimmering abs and bouncing backsides is Salma Hayek, soon to be ejected from her chair by the perfection of Tatum’s lap-dancing storm like a house lifted skywards during a cyclone.
It is a sequence that is at once sensual, silly and stupefyingly exciting. In fact, it just has to be one of the great scenes of 2023.
What a shame, then, that this big hunk of gold sits in a movie that will go down as one of the copper-bottomed duds of 2023.
Like the two Magic Mikes that came before it, Last Dance is keen to slip a little sophisticated plotting into the mix when its audience is (understandably) looking elsewhere.
While the franchise effortlessly got away with that nifty trick in the past, the third time proves to be no charm at all.
No longer a soulful superstripper extraordinaire, Mike (Tatum) is grifting a basic buck as a bartender when he catches the eye of malcontent millionairess Maxandra (Hayek) at a posh Miami fundraiser.
Their chance meeting leads to that aforementioned lap-dance of a lifetime, which earns Mike a firstclass ticket to a new career as a choreographer in London.
In the throes of a complicated divorce from a manipulative husband, Maxandra has brought Mike all this way to peeve her spouse in the most publicly embarrassing way possible. Which is why Mike finds himself directing what will likely turn out to be a very American strip show on the stage of one of Britain’s most beloved theatres.
The fruits of Mike and Maxandra’s labours are nowhere near as outrageous nor cuttingedge as the movie believes them to be (though the actual dancing on display remains of a high calibre throughout).
Similarly, the fiery chemistry shared by Tatum and Hayek in that first unforgettable scene fades away to a distant, flickering glow by the time a long and less-thantriumphant finale is complete.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance is now showing in general release
SPOILER ALERT (M) hhhjj General release
There is one very good reason why this movie is called Spoiler Alert: it deliberately gives away the ending in its very first scene. There is no way any viewer will feel shortchanged by the revelation.
If anything, knowing this gentle, genial and wryly amusing love story is destined to finish with a premature passing of a participant allows Spoiler Alert to underline, italicise and colourfully circle the message it wishes to deliver.
That message? Value the time you have with someone you love, and remember all you can once they are gone.
A memory gathered and stored the right way could be the one thing that helps you heal and move on … the right way.
Jim Parsons (yes, he of Big Bang Theory fame) and Ben Aldridge (recently seen to good effect in Knock at the Cabin) star as Michael and Kit, an oppositesattracted couple whose 13-year journey from a chance hello in a nightclub to a hushed goodbye in a hospital room is charted with good humour and genuine feeling for the most part. (It does help knowing the events chronicled here are indeed based on a true story adapted from author Michael Ausiello’s best-selling memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies).
While structurally the movie sometimes loses its way while grappling with balancing the merry and maudlin, its heart remains in the right place at all times. Co-stars Sally Field.
THE SON (M) hhkjj Selected cinemas
On creative pedigree alone, The Son should easily pass muster as an intelligent, sincere and compelling domestic drama.
The writing-directing team behind the acclaimed The Father (which won Anthony Hopkins a Best Actor Oscar a few years ago) is a major plus, as is the casting of ever-accomplished players such as Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern and Vanessa Kirby.
Not even the surprise intervention of Hopkins – who swings by for a single, stunning scene – can save the movie from a curious flat and uninspired outcome.
Jackman stars as Peter, a can-do New York attorney whose big career ambitions have left him little time to acquire any familywrangling skills.
In particular, his teenage son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) – the only child of Peter’s first wife Kate (Dern) – has borne the full impact of many years of emotional neglect.
While the movie faultlessly executes a deep dive into the mental health issues which have pushed Nicholas into deeply depressive waters, it is strange to watch the likes of Jackman and Dern struggle to flesh out their thinly written roles.
Some valuable (if fleeting) points about the fragility of modern family life are made here, but just as many rich opportunities to expand upon them are completely missed.