Those great big semi-unclothed hunks are back, with abs even more defined than ever, like roof tiles or armadillo scales. The guys are back to strut their increasingly uninteresting stuff in a shower of crumpled dollar bills from unironically whooping female fans. Actually, they always conclude their act pretty much knee-deep in greenbacks. Someone presumably has to sweep up the cash afterwards and make sure it is fairly distributed among the male erotic dancers. This grim business always happens off camera.
Steven Soderbergh’s amiable but overpraised Magic Mike is back for another go-around: this time with his longtime assistant director Gregory Jacobs at the helm but shot by Soderbergh himself under his “Peter Andrews” handle; again written by Reid Carolin and again loosely based on the memories of its producer-star Channing Tatum, once a teen stripper in Florida – and a genuinely gifted dancer.
But there’s none of the physical brilliance of Tatum’s performance in the wrestling movie Foxcatcher, nor the wit and fun of his lunkish cop in 21 and 22 Jump Street. We’re back in the strangely pointless world of dry-humping pseudo-sex on stage with penises kept coyly invisible. We are, through some narrative sleight of hand, invited to believe that this is of course not demeaning or ironic in the way female stripping would be in a Hollywood movie, but romantic and fun.
Magic Mike XXL is a film which looks as if it’s marketed at precisely the hen-night demographic that is represented on screen. Or maybe at female enthusiasts who will be brought along by male dates. When one older woman, played by Andie MacDowell, lusts cougarishly after our heroes, she indicates that her husband turned out to be gay. Maybe it’s an oblique clue to the film’s complex fan-dynamic.
The characters are supposedly rethinking the male burlesque, chucking away the silly posing pouches and fireman costumes and even building in some hip-hop vocals, but it’s exactly the same thing all over again for these muscly romantic troubadours, except with less plot, less character, less interest and no Matthew McConaughey. His character from the first film has gone, so as far as that prestigious Oscar-winner is concerned, the Magic Mike brand has gone from the McConaissance to the McDarkages. They’ve also junked the do-I-really-wanna-be-a-male-stripper angst which allegedly gave the first film depth, or at any rate some dramatic interest.
“Magic” Mike Lane, played by Tatum, is back, quietly getting on with his post-stripping career of creating chairs and dressers to his own super-creative design. But when his erstwhile buddies slide back into town in a slather of babyoil, on their way to a “male stripper convention” in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Mike decides he’s bored with the world of carpentry – and impulsively joins them. So that’s the last we hear about the tiresome business of making furniture.
Does Mike’s reappearance cause any self-esteem problems with the beefy, protein-shake guzzling crew? Not really. Whatever issues they have with each other are resolved when Mike asks someone to kick him cathartically in the balls. Really, he fits right back in with Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Ken (Matt Bomer) and their cuddly driver and MC Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias). He has a little moment with a woman on the beach: Zoe, played by Amber Heard, but she certainly does not develop any clinging marital claim on him. A crisis means that they lose their van, but Zoe’s mum helps them out and Mike renews his relationship with an old flame, Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith), who puts them right back into the centre of the male-stripping action.
The guys have the same reverence for Myrtle Beach as the loveable robbers of the Ocean’s Eleven movies had for Las Vegas, but there’s no narrative pull or jeopardy about anything that happens on screen. We’re always waiting for something important or interesting to happen, but it never really does. The male-stripping scenes don’t necessarily look demeaning but certainly toe-curlingly ridiculous, especially as everyone has solemnly resolved to get rid of the consciously comic corniness. They deride other dancers for doing a Twilight-style vampire act, but then they themselves pull a sub-Christian Grey bondage routine with a giggling woman dragged up on stage and chained to a bed. But any scruples or worries about the absurdity and banality of male stripping have been ruled out of court from the outset, simply by virtue of Mike’s decision to take a break from his woodworking livelihood. Stripping isn’t comic or tragic: it’s just great.
There’s one moment when the movie comes alive, in its goofy way; it’s when Mike is in his workshop, brooding about the possibility of hitting the road again, and he improvises a little dance routine around his saws, his drills and workbench. It’s silly, but there is some flair, mostly because it’s not weighed down with mock-sexiness and the need to patronise women with naughty-but-nice pelvic thrusting. Tatum is a really good dancer. This film has no rhythm.
Source:https://www.theguardian.com
