Film Review: Magic Mike XXL

Magic Mike XXL. Rated MA15+ (strong coarse language and sexual references). 115 minutes. Directed by Gregory Jacobs. Screenplay by Reid Carolin.

In the three years since Magic Mike (2012), Mike (Channing Tatum) has realised his ambition of running a custom-made furniture business. Even though he is living the dream, his small business is struggling to cover its costs, and in no time at all he finds himself back as one of the Kings of Tampa for one final performance at a national strippers convention.

Before it finds its rhythm and reason, the sequel meanders along with long scenes about the circumstances in which the guys reunite. Missing, a little too obviously, is Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas, who has disappeared off to Europe. Also absent is Alex Pettyfer’s Adam, whose rite of passage from a tortured 19-year-old protégé to stripper superstardom formed the basis of Carolin’s engaging screenplay for the first film.

Fortunately, McConaughey and Pettyfer’s absence gives Carolin the opportunity to shine the spotlight back onto Tatum, who dances up a storm and is more than capable of carrying the film. He receives excellent support from the returning Joe Manganiello as Richie and Matt Bomer as Ken in particular, who also get more to play with this time around. Manganiello’s scene when he is dared to make a bored, convenience store shop assistant smile, is great fun.

But where Magic Mike XXL departs significantly, and most successfully, from the first film, is the way in which its female characters are given more depth and purpose within the story. Jada Pinkett Smith’s fascinating Rome essentially ends up replacing Dallas as the troupe’s MC, while Andie MacDowell is wonderful as divorcee Nancy, a woman who, along with her close circle of friends, discovers that their wild and untameable passions are far from extinct.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Magic Mike

Magic Mike. Rated MA 15+ (strong nudity, sexual references, coarse language and drug use). 110 minutes. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay by Reid Carolin.        

Verdict: A beefcake showcase that slowly reveals itself to be far more than it might, at first glance, seem.

While it’s certainly no The Full Monty (1997), in which an unlikely group of down-and-outers fight poverty with their striptease act, Magic Mike has a good deal going for it. At first glance, it’s an autobiographically-inspired showcase for the skills of the indefatigable Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street, Dear John, The Vow), who started his career as a stripper. But with Carolin’s finely-balanced screenplay and the watchful and carefully-considered eye of Soderbergh (Contagion, Traffic, Erin Brockovich), Magic Mike gradually begins to delve into the dark and dangerously addictive side of ‘showbusiness’ – self-delusion, narcissism and a rampantly destructive drug-fuelled subculture.