Magic Mike Trilogy (Steven Soderbergh & Gregory Jacobs, 2012-2023)

[flyonthewall2983]

What about the other 38?

[swo17]

I think you mean 28.

XXL = XXX. Coincidence???

[domino harvey]

Did anyone here see the sequel yet?

[The Narrator Returns]

I did (cut to: no one looking surprised). It's even more of a hangout movie than the first, with no opposing forces whatsoever and an episodic structure which is in place mostly to get the guys to shake their stuff as much as humanly possible. I loved it, even more than the first (although I think it would be a tie if Alex Pettyfer wasn't dragging the first one down). And everyone who's a fan of Soderbergh's aesthetic owes it to themselves to see it, because this could very well be his most gorgeous-looking movie since Che: Part One.

[SexualAmbulance]

Having gone out to see this twice my favorite aspect of the cinematography was the way most shots that aren't MCUs (though some of these do as well) have something in the foreground out of focus. This gives a separation and unique understanding of space that makes obscured objects as important as visible ones, reinforcing that the goal of the film is rampant (but not unbridled) positivity which it is very successful in communicating.

[Red Screamer]

Count me as a big fan as well. It's a delight to see a Hollywood movie so inclusive and kind, especially in the age of the doom and gloom blockbuster. Jacobs throws out the detachment and bubbling darkness of the first film for a feel-good road movie with a light touch. It strikes me as a modern riff on a classic Hollywood musical with little plot or conflict, bunches of style and banter, and the self-proclaimed mission to make everyone smile. The dance numbers are well done and Tatum's two big numbers are extraordinary, if disappointingly short-lived. I like the wide portrait that the two films create with almost opposite views on their subject matter and the existence of both films improves them individually.

[domino harvey]

I was skeptical but man alive this really was even better than the first and the best Hollywood movie musical re-imagining since Scott Pilgrim. Several deserved mentions already for Soderbergh's requisite visual flair behind the lens even if he's not calling the shots, but I thought the long scenes of dialog and interplay between the men in the first half were especially worthy of note and praise, with the back and forth showing a real ear for how the people depicted interact and cajole and crack wise &c. The film is mostly comprised of long extended scenes that take on a documentary feel in structure and execution, and the subsequent "reality" gleaned through it all is just wonderful. A different kind of film than the first, but remarkably a superior one too.

[Red Screamer]

A good piece on XXL, connecting it to An American in Paris and looking at its racial politics

[The Narrator Returns]

Set photos show that Soderbergh has started shooting Magic Mike's Last Dance in London, with Thandiwe Newton as Tatum's love interest.

[The Narrator Returns]

Magic Mike's Last Dance is getting a full theatrical release next February (rather than its announced HBO Max premiere), the first Soderbergh to do so since Unsane.

[The Narrator Returns]

Trailer

[Red Screamer]

It looks like Soderbergh took notes from Magic Mike XXL and is leaning into the musical comedy genre for this one. Good news for me, and the glimpses of choreography and cinematography give me hope that it might actually stack up to the wonderful previous film.

[DarkImbecile]

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is least of the franchise so far, but still more than arousing enough for the packed theater —that was at least 85% women — I saw it with. During the climactic performance sequence, I often couldn’t tell if the surround sound cheers and hollers of pleasure were coming from the speakers or the seats.

The trilogy-capper has Soderbergh return to the director’s chair — he only shot and edited the second and best entry — for another dose of Channing Tatum’s now-retired dancer Mike. Working as a bartender at a charity fundraiser, he’s goaded into giving a lap dance to Salma Hayek’s Max, a rich globe-hopping socialite in the process of divorcing her media mogul husband. Inspired by his performance both in her living room and in bed, she drags Mike to London to create a stage show to give stuffy British elites the same kind of liberation she experienced. The wealth porn on display clashes more than a little with the more working class roots of the other films, where sex and dance and sexy dancing was an escape from economic anxieties. 

The two best dances are both Tatum’s — first his initial seductive introduction of his talents to a very game Salma Hayek, and later the stage-soaking showstopper — and that’s indicative of one of the film’s problems. The other dancers, an extremely talented and stylistically diverse group, are given no character other than “hot dancer” to work with, which keep even their most impressive performances from reaching the heights of the more personalized scenes of which the supporting cast of XXL took full advantage.

Another issue is the narration, delivered in the style of a fairy tale storyteller who is also writing an undergraduate thesis for their pre-MFA program; not only is it sometimes overly academic, it’s also delivered by a character who is supposed to be a high-schooler, whose presence at (and protection from witnessing) the final show is a little discordantly prudish. The central romantic plot between Hayek and Tatum isn’t entirely convincing in its intensity either, though the attraction between them very much is.

But even if the hangout vibes and humorous moments are never as purely enjoyable as in the previous entries, Last Dance is still well-choreographed and performed enough to evoke awe and excitement at what talented and athletic human bodies can do — Soderbergh knows exactly how to light Hayek’s face in a key sequence to make her look stunning as Tatum’s still-chiseled figure inspires emotion and horniness in equal measure.

If sexiness was less of an outlier in mainstream American culture, maybe I’d demand more from a movie as often awkward and undercooked as this one. As is, I find myself hoping it’ll be successful enough that even if this franchise ends, imitators will try their hand at the nearly lost art of having fun turning people on in a movie theater.