Where to begin? Well on one hand, the ladies who flock to see this movie are going to get exactly what they want. “Magic Mike” is exactly what it is advertised to be and that is a bunch of good looking guys stripping down and humping everything in their dancing path. The only bad thing is that when they are not dancing, there is absolutely zero to like about it.
Channing Tatum plays the titular character, “Magic Mike”. When he isn’t stripping at night, he allegedly is an entrepreneur. He works construction, he is an auto detailer but his main goal in life is to go into business making and selling custom furniture out of crap nobody wants anymore. It’s an ambitious goal, the only problem is we only see him on a construction site once and never doing anything resembling working in auto detailing.
He talks a lot about his furniture goals. At one point he tries to get a loan for his business but is declined due to bad credit. He slaps down $12,000 as a down payment. Why he doesn’t use that money to buy materials, build some product and start selling is beyond me. But nobody is going to see “Magic Mike” to watch him build furniture. Ladies want to see him dance, and dance he does. The alarming part of the movie is the dancing is what is most likely to make audiences uncomfortable….it’s the awful attempt at character development and plot, but we’ll get to that.
Mike meets this dude named Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a 19 year old kid who can’t seem to get a grip on his own life. So Mike gets him a job as a stripper at a club owned by Matthew McConaughey. Life is all fine and good until Adam gets involved in drugs and the movie tries to turn itself into an after school special. The drama just doesn’t work and a movie that has plenty of energy in the first half becomes bogged down by a plot that isn’t interesting and actors who can’t act.
“Magic Mike” will bring ladies in but anyone looking for something other than half naked guys with no brains is going to be sorely disappointed. This movie tries to be something more than it is but refuses to go for the throat and for that reason alone director Steven Soderbergh misses the mark. Time to go back and give us another Jack Foley movie.
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