The inspiration for the Magic Mike films was from Channing Tatum’s own experience as a dancer in his formative years and the film’s success prompted two further films of which the third and likely final film is Magic Mike’s Last Dance. The first film unfortunately prompted our Editor to audition for a male stripper troupe and to no one’s surprise he was far from happy after being rejected having been told that his attributes were akin to a ‘slug-balancing-on-a-walnut’- circus act (‘You’re fired!’ – Ed).
Channing Tatum in The Lost City
Channing Tatum returns as Mike Lane former stripper now approaching his 40th birthday with a failed business behind him and now working as a barman at a charity gala held by socialite Max Mendoza (Salma Hayek). ‘People look at what they can’t have’, he tells one guest but Max certainly can and does have him after she persuades him to perform a private dance for her after the party. Max now besotted with the handsome hunk hires him to travel to London (amusingly scene set with shots of tacky tourist tat) with her to direct a male strip show in a theatre that she owns as part of a divorce package from her ex-husband.
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Directed by Steven Soderbergh this third film does feels like a cash in with some odd moments that includes a voice over about the nature of dance as a courtship ritual through the millennia but most bizarrely is an Intermission card half way through that serves no purpose at all, certainly not comic, except to emphasize the theatricality of what the film is about. The keen eyed will also spot a cameo from British comedian Marcus Brigstocke too, himself a former cage dancer, though here he plays a socialite friend of Max.
Salma Hayek and her potty mouthed intro of The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife
Tatum and Hayek are a convincingly hot screen duo ( and both are adept comic actors too) and they’re almost outshone by her valet/driver Victor (Ayub Khan-Din) and Max’s screen daughter an amusing and precociously intelligent teenager. Together they’re an entertaining screen quartet but they’re let down by a script that plays like a promo for the Magic Mike XXL stage show with more waxed and buffed bodies than a Rolls Royce showroom and a climactic scene which plays little better than a filmed stage show. With the first two films doing decent and deserved business audiences might feel a little short changed by Magic Mike’s Last Dance.
Here’s the Magic Mike Last Dance trailer…..
