STRIP FLUB
‘Magic Mike’ film series stumbles again with relentlessly dumb sequel
When the original “Magic Mike” was released in 2012, I distinctly remember not saying, “That was a lot of fun, but there’s clearly so much more nuance and complexity to the ‘Magic Mike’ saga, we’re going to need at least a trilogy to tell the whole story!”
Not to disparage Steven Soderbergh’s low-budget, big-profit, sexually charged romp, which was a lot more fun than it had a right to be. Loosely inspired by star Channing Tatum’s own experiences as an exotic dancer in Tampa, Florida, when he was 18, “Magic Mike” actually had a lot going on, what with Mike having big business ambitions (oh, that denied-loan scene, so heartbreaking!) and let’s not forget the star presence of Matthew McConaughey, who played “Dallas” a year before he hit Oscar gold in “Dallas Buyer’s Club,” and like I was saying there’s a lot going on in “Magic Mike.”
Then came the half-baked sequel, “Magic Mike XXL” (2015) — and now we’re getting “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” which is by far the most ridiculous entry in the trilogy and is one of the weirdest movies I’ve seen in recent memory, unfortunately not in a sobad-it’s-good kind of way. It’s just relentlessly dumb, with a contrived plot that defies even the cartoonishly simplistic framework of the “Magic Mike” movies.
In a clever opening, Mike is tending bar at a lavish estate in Miami when a guest named Kim (Caitlin Gerard) recognizes him and thinks they might have gone to school together, or was he once a police officer? Flashback to “Magic Mike,” with Mike dressed as a cop and stripping for college student Kim. (So, he sort of was a cop and they sort of did go to school together.)
After the party winds down, Mike is summoned inside the house by the host, one Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek Pinault), a depressed and restless business mogul who has heard from Kim about Mike’s previous career and offers Mike $6,000 for one dance to cheer her up — but without a happy ending, she’s not interested in that. After Mike rearranges the furniture, he proceeds to give Maxandra the dance of her life, and what do you know, Mike and Max wind up in bed after all. Oh, that Mike.
Maxandra has another proposition for Mike: She’ll pay him 60 grand if he’ll accompany her to London for a month to just hang out, no physical strings attached, while she tends to some business affairs, reunites with her precocious daughter Zadie (Jemelia George, adorable) and contends with her prickly estranged husband, Roger (Alan Cox). Maxandra gives Mike the “Pretty Woman” makeover treatment and even allows him to stay at her house — but again, no romance. There’s NO CHANCE of a romance. Cough-cough.
Now comes the part where “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” pretty much loses its mind. Turns out Maxandra’s husband’s family owns and operates a prestigious London theater called The Rattigan, where they’ve been staging the stuffy period-piece romance “Isabel Ascendant.” Max has an epiphany: She’ll put Mike in charge of revamping the play and turning it into a male-stripper stage show fantasy conveying the message that a woman can have whatever she wants, whenever she wants it!
Cue the scenes where Mike and Max find the best dancers, and then a bunch of guys do a choreographed dance routine on a city bus to win over a fussy bureaucrat who’s standing in the way of renovations to the theater, and we haven’t even talked about how Mike decides at the last minute they’re gonna need a ballet dancer for the big finale, and the ballerina learns an intricately choreographed number in like six hours. The dance scenes are admittedly well-choreographed and filmed (that Soderbergh kid knows what he’s doing behind the camera), but “Last Dance” isn’t nearly as raw and sexy as the original.
Amid all the madness, we’re supposed to believe Mike and Maxandra are falling in love, even though they hardly know each other and quite frankly, Maxandra seems a little unhinged. Mike might be better off taking the 60 grand and hightailing it back to Florida.