Magic Mike’s Last Dance Review: The stripper fantasy takes on a hot new form

The point, the purpose – the Purposewhenever you want — Magic Mike’s stripper films cater to women’s fantasies. The series has expanded since 2012’s Working Class Magic MikeThe imagination has changed too. The original film was all about the pleasure of a hot guy who is also humble and considerate. 2015 Magic Mike XXL expanded on that idea with a rich hodgepodge of oiled-up hunks all ready to toss delighted women around like carrots in a salad spinner.

In 2023 Magic Mike’s Last Dance, The fantasy has evolved once again: now the woman really is on top as Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) becomes the man held. The fantasy here isn’t that of a woman being knocked off her feet; Instead, she gives a man her credit card and says, “Buy whatever you want, baby.”

Director Steven Soderbergh, its long ago threatened withdrawal from the cinema

continue to sound hollow (he was back for the HBO Max thriller this time last year To the) returns to the series this time after skipping Magic Mike XXL. His original Magic Mike was more of a dark dramedy than a romantic fantasy, but this time it doesn’t work in both modes: Last Dance feels more like it’s coming from the flashy blockbuster spirit behind it Ocean’s Eleven.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a my beautiful lady Story, but with stripping instead of singing. It begins with Mike working at a catering gig at a ritzy Miami mansion, where whispers among the partygoers prompt the lady of the house, the lavish pseudo-divorced Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek), to leave Mike for his special after-hours duties keep . Fans of the previous Magic Mike Movies know this to mean a lap dance/gymnastics show/pantomime sex act combination that’s kind of ridiculous but also impressive. Maxandra is so taken with Mike that she asks him to accompany her on her private plane to London the next morning, promising him a surprise once they arrive. Is Florida’s Favorite Amateur Carpenter Turning To Sex Work? Not exactly.

After Mike settles into his swanky new pad and Maxandra buys him his expensive new wardrobe, she finally reveals her master plan. She recently acquired ownership of a historic theater in the West End that runs a show by the name Isabel ascending about forever. The play is about a woman who must choose between a marriage for love or money, which angers Maxandra and her “why not both?” attitude to life. With a delicious side of defiance towards her husband’s uptight family, Maxandra has decided to make a statement of her belief that “a woman can have whatever she wants, whenever she wants” by performing an all-male revue at the theatre. And she wants Mike to direct.

In the decade and change since the first Magic Mike became a word of mouth hit, live stage productions based on the series have opened in Las Vegas and London’s West End. This new film often acts as an advertisement for the latter: the theater in which many scenes take place is similar to that in which the true life Magic Mike Live! takes place five nights a week, and the film’s plot establishes an origin story for the same live show. Along the way we learn some standard lessons about how money can’t buy love, tempered with the acknowledgment that Maxandra’s vast fortune and distant husband (they’re not technically divorced, but they’re estranged and barely speak) Do make life a lot easier.

For his part, Channing Tatum still plays the humble Adonis. He is fluent in French but refrains from responding to a conversation between Maxandra and her precocious daughter until they have said things that, in his words, are “hella rude”. In terms of stagecraft, he aligns himself with Maxandra and explains: “It’s about women. I am not a woman.” This statement is typical of Magic Mike’s Last Dance and his ideas about what women want: When we finally get to the stage show itself, host Hannah (Juliette Motamed) yells at both “a bad boy who always answers my texts” and “a CEO who pays women more than men” . Approval is also very important for Mike and his crew. And yes, that’s sexy.

But what, one might reasonably ask, about the stripping? Aside from Tatum (whose Florida friends from previous films, including Joe Manganiello, only make brief appearances via Skype), the cast here is all new, made up of street performers and modern dancers, which Maxandra picks out like so many designer purses. And their scenes share the difference between the first film’s sporadic, contextual strip shows and the beefcake buffet that occupies the entire back half Magic Mike XXL.

In Magic Mike’s Last Dance, The audience also has to wait until the last 20 minutes to feast on the eye candy. No oil this time. (Apologies to those who like their men to resemble slippery, muscular seals.) And while there are a few lap dances, most of what transpires on Mike and Maxandra’s stage is more theatrical spectacle than erotic.

On the whole, Magic Mike’s Last Dance has the feel of a stage musical, complete with great emotion expressed through song – or a half-naked interpretive dance in artificial rain, whichever you choose. It’s a lustful, aspiring fairy tale with sublime scenarios, luxurious clothing choices and a London where working-class Adonises stage impromptu flash mobs in double-decker buses. (This scene briefly turns the film into a jazzy caper for the the italian job, but with the intention of seducing an uptight bureaucrat rather than stealing $4 million worth of gold bullion.) But allowing both love and money to complicate the original enjoyment of watching muscular men circling in sweatpants ultimately dilutes the once simple pleasures of film. Maybe you tip to have everything.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance opens in cinemas on February 10th.