‘MAGIC MIKE XXL’
Starring Channing Tatum and company, this racy sequel to Steven Soderbergh’s 2012 male-stripper saga, which stuffed $167 million into Warner Bros.’ worldwide box-office pouch, improves on the original (which was a downer), by stripping out the disingenuous, tsk-tsk moralizing. This time around, it’s a rowdy road picture about a band of male entertainers. Filled with lean, mean eye candy, sexy dance numbers and goofball bromantic antics, it gives the audience exactly what it desires. It’s just too bad they didn’t film it in 3-D.
The absence of Matthew McConaughey, who was so slinky and sultry in the first film, is sorely felt, but the exit of Alex Pettyfer who played an up-and-coming stripper in the first installment doesn’t matter much.
To fill the McConaughey void are fresh strippers who are game and welcome. TV stars Donald Glover (“Community”), Michael Strahan (“Live with Kelly and Michael”), and Stephen “tWitch” Boss (“So You Think You Can Dance”) up the ante, with killer moves and abs to die for.
Not to be upstaged by their scantily clad male counterparts are the new women in the cast. They’re given strong characters, and the actresses have a heyday playing them. Jada Pinkett Rating: R (for strong sexual content, pervasive language, some nudity and drug use) Cast: Channing Tatum, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Adam Rodriguez, Jada Pinkett Smith, Donald Glover, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, Andie MacDowell, Michael Strahan, Amber Heard Director: Gregory Jacobs Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes Smith smolders as Rome, the operator of a women-only club in a Southern mansion where stripping goes down. Elizabeth Banks is hilarious as Paris, the organizer of a stripper convention. Amber Heard as Zoe makes for an intriguing, new, if low-key love interest. But it’s Andie MacDowell who’s a scenestealing surprise as Nancy, a wealthy Southern woman who, along with her girlfriends, welcome some unexpected stripper visitors quite eagerly to Nancy’s home. It’s one of the film’s highlights.
The screenplay — credited to returning scribe Reid Carolin — feels improvised, with the plot largely incidental. It reunites its fivepack band of male strippers — Mike (Tatum), Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez) and Tarzan (Kevin Nash) on a road trip bound for a stripping convention in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
And that’s about it for plot. But let’s get honest, if you’re paying to see “Magic Mike XXL,” you’re not exactly interested in its narrative thrust. What you get are existential discussions about changing stripping routines among guys on drugs. “Macbeth” it is not.
In the end, the boys more than achieve their goal of doing something different, with director Gregory Jacobs (who worked with Soderbergh on HBO’s “Behind the Candelabra”) stepping it up for the finale and going all out on well-choreographed and frisky dance numbers.
Even when the film loses focus and ties up some previous storylines rather flippantly, the cast’s charm wins you over.
The actors are fabulous together. Tatum is a natural, easygoing and on fire in every dance scene. Manganiello’s role is expanded, and he lands the best laughs in an inspired sequence involving a convenience store clerk. Bomer is the very embodiment of a Ken doll and gets to spar with Tatum. Meanwhile, Rodriguez steams up every scene he’s in, and Nash is there to remind us that the stripper life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
But what’s particularly energizing about “Magic Mike XXL” is how it exuberantly celebrates sexuality, and does so unabashedly and unapologetically. It’s something you don’t often see in mainstream films.
Equally refreshing is how many scenes of the guys stripping feature women of all shapes and sizes getting in on the action. Everyone is invited to have a good time with “Magic Mike XXL.” While its sexy ways will attract anyone attracted to guys with hot bodies, there’s something more than liberating going on here — even if it’s being said with a wink and a whole lot of naked flesh.