QUEEN FOR A DAY
During one of the bro-y heart-to-hearts that are actually quite common in Magic Mike XXL, new recruit Andre (Donald Glover) confesses to smiling doll Ken (Matt Bomer) that he might not give up male “entertaining” even if he didn’t need the money: these women, he explains, are escaping from a bunch of guys that don’t listen to them, a world that doesn’t care about their opinion, to get full attention from a handsome guy who wants to be around them. “We’re, like, healers or something” he explains dreamily.
As with just about everything in this movie, it’s meant a bit tongue-in-pulsating-cheek, but still: where the first in this surprising stripper tentpole franchise had Mike (Channing Tatum) trying to gyrate his impressive body off the stage and into legitimate business, the XXL version is all about the palliative powers of these men in penis-outlining speedos. These hunks are on a mission from god (who’s a woman, as Mike cheerfully explains to one future customer), sent to ease the burden of being a modern woman, at best admired but never truly appreciated. Take six abs, and don’t call them in the morning.
Some part of this is simple fan service — this movie could not be more appealing to women of a certain caste if Channing Tatum himself was on hand at every screening to give them a back rub and a Bacardi Breezer — but it’s also an interesting undercurrent of justification, or at least separation from the altogether stickier world of men ogling plasticized women for money. The grand societal power dynamics are flipped; potentially bedding Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello) is a battle cry for women everywhere, not just a mildly skeezy way to spend a lost weekend. Don’t identify as a feminist? Let’s see if a mittful of ones and a pelvis twitching three inches from your face doesn’t convince you that sisters should be doing it for themselves (or at least having it done to them, for themselves).
Pulled back in for one last ride, Mike and his boys are on their way to the male entertainer convention, though the road trip is really an excuse to have the gang brightening the nights of one specific woman after another. What’s more impressive, excepting the all-you-can-eat-buffet of the finale, their devotion and exaltation is just as thorough with their shirts on.
First on the list is Zoe (Amber Heard), a sad-faced photographer met at a beach after-party; Mike is patently devoted to getting her smile back, and the general blankness of Heard’s also-there charisma gives him all the more reason to go into overdrive. Tatum may as well be acting by himself, but as his “Pony” dance proved, that can be some of his best work, and it really lets him show off his goofy side, the aw-shucks-and-abs charm that make him a perfect fit for his role as a kind of friend’s little brother/your older lover fantasy dude.
This wouldn’t be a party if there weren’t more women to impress, though, nor if there weren’t more men to pull it off. In need of a new MC for the conference — Matthew McConaughey no longer works for small bills — he leads the gang to a Savannah sex palace run by Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith), his former boss, who also a particular habit of addressing women as “queen” and demanding they drain every ounce of pleasure from the men in her employ. There’s some bad blood, but Mike buries the hatchet by busting out a classic routine that involves faux-humping two women at once, revealing himself as the rare man who can satisfy one woman emotionally while taking care of two others physically. (Good luck trying that at home.)
Ever graceful and/or mindful of the fact not even he can be all things to all women, Tatum gives up the focus frequently, most notably to Richie, who not only cracks the bitter seal of a gas station attendant with an inventive use of a water bottle, but also makes a divorcée’s night with some well-placed flattery and his eponymous anatomy. And that doesn’t even get into his final dance, which sneaks in a little bit of 50 Shades via a very well-timed Nine Inch Nails song.
As mentioned off the top, there is some ample bro-bonding in between all this women-pleasing, though even it mostly just serves to remind how adorable and daffy these well-oiled pleasure machines really are — even the spots of drug use here are just a fun little escape fantasy, a wacky road trip side adventure carrying none of the dark tinges they did in the first. And that is basically XXL writ small: where the first Magic Mike pulled back the curtain, this one stays firmly in the pit below the stage, happy to soak up sweat and skin and not worry about what might be going on in the dark recesses of these strippers’ brains. It’s a simpler experience, but then doesn’t everyone (or everywoman) need a little mindless worship now and again?