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

The point, the purpose — the raison d’être, if you’re feeling fancy — of the Magic Mike male-stripper movies is catering to women’s fantasies. As the series has expanded from the working-class grit of 2012’s Magic MikeHowever, this fantasy has also changed. The original movie was just about the pleasure of a hot guy who’s also humble and considerate. 2015’s Magic Mike XXLThe idea was expanded to include a whole smorgasbord oiled-up hunks ready to delight women as carrots in a salad spinner.

In 2023’s Magic Mike’s Last Dance,The fantasy is evolving once more: Mike Lane (Channing Tatum), now the man who keeps the women happy, has become Mike Lane. The fantasy here isn’t for a woman to be swept off her feet; instead, she’s handing a man her credit card and saying, “Buy whatever you want, babe.”

Steven Soderbergh was the director of HBO Max, and his threats of retiring from movies ring hollow. KimiAfter having been sacked, () is back in the series. Magic Mike XXL.His original Magic Mike was more a gritty dramedy than a romantic fantasy, but this time out, he isn’t working in either mode: Last DanceIt feels like more of a blockbuster movie mind. Ocean’s Eleven.

Photo: Claudette Barius/Warner Bros. Pictures

Magic Mike’s Last DanceIt is possible to My Fair Lady Story, except that it involves stripping and not singing. It begins with Mike working a catering gig at a posh Miami mansion, where whispers among the party guests lead the lady of the house, uber-wealthy pseudo-divorceé Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek), to retain Mike for his special after-hours services. Magic Mike fans movies know this means a combination lap dance/gymnastics exhibition/mimed sex act that’s kind of ridiculous, but also impressive. Maxandra falls in love with Mike and asks him to fly her to London on her private aircraft. He promises a surprise once they get there. Is Florida’s favorite amateur carpenter pivoting into sex work? But not exactly.

Mike finally settled in to his luxurious new home and Maxandra bought him a new outfit. She then revealed her masterplan. She recently came into possession of a historic theater in the West End that’s been running a show called Isabel Ascending About forever. The play is about a woman who has to choose between marrying for love or money, which irks Maxandra and her “Why not both?” approach to life. So, with a delicious side of spite toward her husband’s uptight family, Maxandra has decided to make a statement on her belief that “a woman can have whatever she wants, whenever she wants” by putting on an all-male revue at the theater. She wants Mike to be her director.

Over the past ten years, much has changed since that first. Magic Mike became a word-of-mouth hit, live stage productions based on the series have opened in Las Vegas and on London’s West End. It is often easy to feel like this new movie is an advert for the former: Many scenes were set in the same theater as the ones where real-life takes place. Magic Mike Live! It takes place on five nights each week. The plot of the movie sets the scene for the same live show. Along the way, we learn some boilerplate lessons about how money can’t buy love, tempered with an acknowledgement that Maxandra’s vast fortune and distant husband (they’re not technically divorced, but they’re estranged and barely speaking) Do It makes life easier.

Channing Tatum is, however, still portraying the modest hunk. He speaks fluent French, but holds back on replying to a conversation between Maxandra and her precocious daughter until they’ve said things that are, in his words, “hella rude.” He defers to Maxandra on matters of stagecraft, explaining, “It’s about women. I’m not a woman.” That statement is typical of Magic Mike’s Last Dance and its ideas about what women want: When we finally get to the stage show itself, emcee Hannah (Juliette Motamed) shouts out both “a bad boy who always responds to my texts” and “a CEO who pays women more than men.” Consent is also very important to Mike and his crew. And yes, that’s sexy.

Warner Bros. Pictures

What about stripping? Tatum is absent from this movie, and his Florida pals, Joe Manganiello, appear only briefly via Skype. The cast of the new film, however, includes modern dancers Maxandra selects as designer bags. They split the gap between the short, in-context strip performances of the first movie and the full back of the film’s beefcake buffet. Magic Mike XXL.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance,The audience must also wait until the end to indulge in eye candy. There’s no oil this time around. Sorry to all those who want their men to look like muscular, slippery seals. And while there are a few lap dances, most of what transpires on Mike and Maxandra’s stage is a theatrical spectacle rather than an erotic one.

Overall, Magic Mike’s Last Dance has the feel of a stage musical, complete with big emotions expressed through song — or a half-naked interpretive dance in the fake rain, as the case may be. It’s a lusty, aspirational fairy tale, featuring heightened scenarios, luxe wardrobe choices, and a London where working-class Adonises stage impromptu flash mobs on double-decker buses. The movie is briefly transformed into a jazzy adventure in this scene. à laItalic JobHowever, with the intention to seduce an insecure bureaucrat and steal $4,000,000 worth of gold bullion. But allowing both love and money to complicate the primal enjoyment of watching muscular men in sweatpants gyrate ends up diluting the film’s once-simple pleasures. Perhaps you are. can’tYou can have it all.

Magic Mike’s Last DanceFilm opens at theaters February 10.