Magic Mike XXL ****
Ex-stripper-turned-actor Channing Tatum knows how to thrill the ladies/gays – whether he believes his real-life stripper anecdotes are all but used up after this film, a mere wriggle and a ripple of the actor/dancer’s torso is all it takes to put bottoms on cinema seats. Whereas Magic Mike in 2012 had a little more serious tone to it, charting some of the business’s realities, the 2015 film is pure ‘tongue in cheek’, the premise being to roll out the six-packs to thrill one last time, at one last stripper convention.
Three years on, and Mike (Tatum) currently makes an honest living as a removal man with his own expanding business. But when the boys pass through town and make him one last offer he cannot refuse, he joins the remaining Kings of Tampa on the road to Myrtle Beach to put on one last explosive performance.
The plot is thin and blatantly obvious, but that’s not the appeal. It’s the big, dumb camaraderie of the boys on their road trip, played by Tatum, Joe Manganiello (Big Dick Richie), Kevin Nash (Tarzan), Matt Bomer (Ken), Adam Rodriguez (Tito) and Gabriel Iglesias (MC Tobias) that is infectious. This is coupled with a trace of pity at first at their predicament, as they appear to only be one-trick ponies ready to be retired. All the cast are hilarious as they ‘sex it up’ one last time, and live life as it’s thrown at them.
Ironically, this film is incredibly empowering to watch as a woman too. The people that hold the boys by the ‘proverbial balls’ are all women – Jada Pinkett Smith plays a ballsy MC called Roman with her own successful club, and Elizabeth Banks is the Myrtle Beach convention’s organiser, Paris. Even Andie MacDowell plays a wealthy Southern divorcee called Nancy who gets her pound of flesh, and is a tonic to watch.
There is an almost unrecognisable turn from Amber Heard as ‘feminist’ Zoe, who seems to easily succumb to the frivolity like Anastasia Steele does in Fifty Shades. It just shows that animal instinct will always thrive over reason, and if you allow this, Magic Mike XXL is one big bag of entertainment, doing exactly as it sets out to do, unashamedly, and well worth the ticket price for sheer titillation. Straight males won’t get it – the rest of us will, so bring along ‘the girls’ for a satisfying night out.
4/5 stars
By @FilmGazer
