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MAGIC MIKE'S
LAST DANCE
Three laps around the chair was a lap dance too much it seems…
at least with this weird direction they went in.
The Magic Mike spark spiked with its maximized sequel XXL, all the while this stripped-down stripper conclusion mostly feels like a cheap cash grab that just doesn’t grab you the way the other two movies did. The first follow-up proved that this sudden franchise wasn’t just a one-trick pony, but perhaps the third film should just have been a “strip and dip” type deal – because keeping it safe would’ve been better than this poor attempt at a serious finale…
It really is a shame for past construction worker and moving-man-with-the-moves Mike Lane to go out in a way this lame. After the perfectly constructed first sequel I had sort of come to love this odd undies-universe of shamelessly sexy dancing and great choreography paired with an enchanting Channing Tatum taking front and center stage. But the transition from fondling willing women to fumbling with the feelings of a mature milf just doesn’t work out for our favorite workout-wonder.
Fundamentally, I can’t say I completely hate the core idea of strong-core-muscle-man Magic Mike maturing into a new and better life while also pushing male performance dancing away from the vulgar and towards the artistic. But I can’t say that the movie succeeds with it either, especially when the previous entry played playfully with that same subject and with greater success. The third film could have been a major mature swan song to a male thong-wearing, hung-swung-daring swing of a thing of a movie. Alas… not.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance should have left audiences in a trance, but instead feels like an uninspired and underworked undertaking of an understated “underwear drama” trying really hard to be painfully philosophical. Especially the whole voice-over deal comes off as a high school student’s cringey class presentation. Weirdly so, everything seems to run almost purposely on fumes throughout and Soderbergh’s previous drive now seems to be stuck in nude-neutral.
How can this be what they ultimately decided would become the long-awaited Last Dance of our titular funky hunky hanky panky hero, Magic Mike. A sad and somber sequel that caps off the trilogy without the backwards caps or toned-body thrills of XXL nor the surprise thunder of the original. I’m all for something new and different, but many of the core elements and characters are gone and replaced with an underdeveloped story with about as many layers as the male performers are wearing in the film.
I truly can’t believe Magic Mike went from scene-stealing sequences, containing a couple of uncontained and carefree stripper-cops trying to cop a feel, to two sad love doves coping with feelings of failure and unfulfilled success. Again, on paper it isn’t a fundamentally poor idea, but the paper chasing Channing Tatum was surely more interestingly executed than the paper tissue version on display here. Also, it might be controversial to say this, but Selma Hayek was just not it either. Looks can’t save all bad, which the movie itself is also proof of.
While having a decent climatic stage show, the rain-filled finale feels almost symbolic to the thousands of tears of the many fans crying in sheer disappointment. Ultimately, this Last Dance ended up feeling like a deadbeat retreat of former fuller potential now left unfulfilled, leaving Magic Mike as a tiresome threesome rather than the turn-on-trilogy it could have been…
___________
LAST DANCE
Three laps around the chair was a lap dance too much it seems…
at least with this weird direction they went in.
The Magic Mike spark spiked with its maximized sequel XXL, all the while this stripped-down stripper conclusion mostly feels like a cheap cash grab that just doesn’t grab you the way the other two movies did. The first follow-up proved that this sudden franchise wasn’t just a one-trick pony, but perhaps the third film should just have been a “strip and dip” type deal – because keeping it safe would’ve been better than this poor attempt at a serious finale…
It really is a shame for past construction worker and moving-man-with-the-moves Mike Lane to go out in a way this lame. After the perfectly constructed first sequel I had sort of come to love this odd undies-universe of shamelessly sexy dancing and great choreography paired with an enchanting Channing Tatum taking front and center stage. But the transition from fondling willing women to fumbling with the feelings of a mature milf just doesn’t work out for our favorite workout-wonder.
Fundamentally, I can’t say I completely hate the core idea of strong-core-muscle-man Magic Mike maturing into a new and better life while also pushing male performance dancing away from the vulgar and towards the artistic. But I can’t say that the movie succeeds with it either, especially when the previous entry played playfully with that same subject and with greater success. The third film could have been a major mature swan song to a male thong-wearing, hung-swung-daring swing of a thing of a movie. Alas… not.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance should have left audiences in a trance, but instead feels like an uninspired and underworked undertaking of an understated “underwear drama” trying really hard to be painfully philosophical. Especially the whole voice-over deal comes off as a high school student’s cringey class presentation. Weirdly so, everything seems to run almost purposely on fumes throughout and Soderbergh’s previous drive now seems to be stuck in nude-neutral.
How can this be what they ultimately decided would become the long-awaited Last Dance of our titular funky hunky hanky panky hero, Magic Mike. A sad and somber sequel that caps off the trilogy without the backwards caps or toned-body thrills of XXL nor the surprise thunder of the original. I’m all for something new and different, but many of the core elements and characters are gone and replaced with an underdeveloped story with about as many layers as the male performers are wearing in the film.
I truly can’t believe Magic Mike went from scene-stealing sequences, containing a couple of uncontained and carefree stripper-cops trying to cop a feel, to two sad love doves coping with feelings of failure and unfulfilled success. Again, on paper it isn’t a fundamentally poor idea, but the paper chasing Channing Tatum was surely more interestingly executed than the paper tissue version on display here. Also, it might be controversial to say this, but Selma Hayek was just not it either. Looks can’t save all bad, which the movie itself is also proof of.
While having a decent climatic stage show, the rain-filled finale feels almost symbolic to the thousands of tears of the many fans crying in sheer disappointment. Ultimately, this Last Dance ended up feeling like a deadbeat retreat of former fuller potential now left unfulfilled, leaving Magic Mike as a tiresome threesome rather than the turn-on-trilogy it could have been…
___________