Stripped of all substance
New on circuit: MAGIC MIKE XXL Cast: Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer Director: Gregory Jacobs Rating: ★✩✩✩✩ environment for the average innocent male – and it’s time that our plaintive cries were heard.
And while we’re in protest mode, maybe we should also take up arms against this plague of sequels, “reimaginings” and spin-offs that is currently upon us. Recently opened or about to open are: Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys, Minions, Ted 2, and, of course, Magic Mike XXL.
Disney is re-doing a number of its classic animated movies in liveaction format, as if the originals didn’t still hold up (which they do) and, it grieves me to say, there are further Mission Impossible and Avatar movies on the way.
Yes, a couple of the above films may be reasonably enjoyable, but doesn’t Hollywood have a single original idea left in its collective brain?
Although the original Magic Mike was an entertaining enough bit of fluff, it certainly didn’t warrant a sequel.
It was like one of those inconsequential anecdotes you tell at a braai: you put it out there, everyone has a smile and you move on. But you don’t replay the punchline.
This film is a sordid little affair, and that has nothing to do with a prudish reaction to stripping, as I haven’t a problem with people disrobing, provided that they don’t do so in the streets, and frighten the horses and children.
If anything, some folk may be disappointed with the absence of nudity in the film. Its attempt at eroticism finds expression in pitifully unsubtle dance moves that would make a lap-dancer cringe.
The film tells of “Magic Mike” (Channing Tatum), whose seemingly magical relationship with his girlfriend/fiancé in the first film has fallen apart.
He rejoins his stripper (sorry: “male entertainer”) buddies, in some singularly unconvincing scenes.
They climb aboard a bus for a “last ride” to a convention in Myrtle Beach (yes, Virginia; it appears that everyone has conventions these days) – think Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but with muscle-bound macho men instead of drag queens. In fact, there’s so much machismo knocking about in that vehicle, that they make swaggering Man United footie players look like Girl Scout organisers.
Andie MacDowell (long time no see!) – who’s looking fantastic – makes an appearance as a foulmouthed and randy old Southern gal. What on earth was she thinking when she accepted this role?
And what was Tatum thinking? He’s an ex-stripper who made it into the rarefied atmosphere of Hollywood stardom (of a sort), and he’s now doing his best to typecast himself – as a stripper.
You may contend that I’m not the right person to pass judgement on this film, so I canvassed some of my female fellow reviewers after the movie. These are the comments I harvested: “A movie to drink wine to, with my girlfriends. Nothing serious.” / “There’s not a lot of magic in Mike.” / “I expected a lot more.” / “Choreography good; storyline bad.” / “Boring.”
Two of my female moviereviewing counterparts (both wildly heterosexual, in case you were wondering) walked out during the movie.
One commented, as she departed, that it was tacky, and that she felt dirty; dirty and bored.
The girls have pretty much said it for me: tacky and tedious. Very, very tedious – as in long, dull stretches of vapid conversation that take the story (such as it is) absolutely nowhere.
And goodness knows I’ll never expunge the image from my plagued mind of a bearded, musclebound, middle-aged Neanderthal stripping to a teeny pair of black leather shorts. If rinsing my eyes in disinfectant would help, I’d do it.