Film Review - Magic Mike’s Last Dance
Images courtesy of Warner Bros.
I was a Magic Mike defender, through and through. To those who found out I was reviewing this film, and responded sarcastically “Oh, I bet you’re watching for the plot” - let it be known that I really was. I had complete faith that Mr Michael Douglas Lane was going to pull through for me, for the third time in both of our lives. I was sorely mistaken.
The tertiary (and final!?) instalment of Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike trilogy sees Channing Tatum reprising the eponymous role, now years after the events of Magic Mike XXL. Mike is bartending at a lavish party, and still smoothly dispensing charm and charisma on his coworkers and customers, when he is called into the home of the host. Enter Selma Hayek, playing the Mother I’d Love to Freaking Respect, Maxandra Mendoza, a rich lady who just wants a lap dance. And dance Mike certainly does, putting on a show of swinging across furniture, as he thrusts and gyrates across the room and atop several tables. Maxandra seems to like this dance, and soon after, offers Mike a whopping sixty thousand dollars to travel to England with her and direct a stage show at the Rattigan theatre. This show is to be a male-stripper reimagining of a prissy, Age of Innocence-esque period play currently playing at the theatre - a revival which obviously makes complete sense. Scenes of Maxandra and Mike sourcing dancers and rehearsing are loosely connected by a discordant narration on the history and philosophy of dance, delivered by Maxandra’s teenage daughter Hannah - a puzzling accompaniment to the very much adult activity happening on-screen.
Magic Mike XXL (widely recognised as One of The Greatest Movies of All Time), the second entry into the franchise, recombined the original gang from the first film - minus a couple of its less interesting characters - for what turns out to be an extremely wholesome quasi-road movie, as the Kings of Tampa travel to put on a final show at the Myrtle Beach male stripping convention. Considering the last movie was basically about getting the gang back together for one final wingding in Vegas, moving Mr. Michael Lane to London to direct/perform at The Rattigan for the “final time”, now joined by a new band of anonymous ragtags just feels kind of flavourless. We JUST did this (in 2015). I mean honestly - who are these young men? They have neither the ironic idealism of Matt Bomer as Ken, nor the rakish good looks and endearing shyness of Joe Manganiello as Big Dick Richie.
Instead of focusing on the relationships between the team of dancers, Magic Mike’s Last Dance brings the romantic relationship between Hayek and Tatum’s characters to the forefront of the story - and unfortunately, their chemistry is almost non-existent. Their on-screen connection peaks in the first dance scene, then fizzles out completely once we hit the thirty minute mark, completely failing to provide the necessary hook to bait us into believing in this romance. The plots of the first two films of the trilogy are propelled by the characters’ class identities and sense of collective camaraderie: most of them are struggling to balance pursuing their dream careers whilst maintaining jobs that are sufficient to support themselves in the aftermath of a financial crisis. This existing storyline of genuinely affective solidarity is here sidelined to make room for a weak romance, in great disservice to the roots of the trilogy. Although this might have been to have been done in an attempt to provide a more genuine sense of representation for female characters than in the previous two films, or to cater to the largely female Magic Mike fanbase, the overblown, poorly scripted discussions of female empowerment undermine any of these efforts, amounting to a what feels like manufactured, false inclusivity that comes at the expense of a cohesive plot.
With far less stripping and far fewer banger tracks than one would expect for a movie about stripping, I declare Magic Mike’s Last Dance an official flop, and encourage you to re-watch Magic Mike XXL twice instead. It’s simply self-care.
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Magic Mike’s Last Dance is screening from Thursday 9th February. For tickets and more info, click here.