Y’know, it'd be easy (and embarrassingly predictable) to undercut any attempts to pontificate about this movie in my usual way since… I mean, it’s about male strippers, there’s not a lot of wriggle room in terms of its appeal as a movie. But credit to Steven Soderbergh, as I’ve been making a habit of giving in these reviews, for making this a now-trilogy of films that are worth watching for more than just the surface-level titillation. The first Magic Mike was as much a character-driven examination of the effects of the Global Financial Crisis as it was an inside-out look at the world of male stripping. Hell, it swung so far in the former’s direction, making Mike’s decision to be a stripper into something he ‘had to do’ due to economic concerns, that its sequel in XXL almost feels like an apology for that.
Indeed, while I still don’t think it's as strong as the original, the emphasis XXL puts on a pleasure-positive message in regard to this kind of entertainment, highlighting both the man on-stage and the woman watching as equally valid-as-fuck, is quite commendable. And yeah, I’ll admit it, I’m more than certain that these two films had a fair bit to do with me coming to terms with my own Queerness, although I’m going to try not to emphasise that aspect too much. Mainly, because this continues along the same line as both the first film and XXL, and yet feels like an entirely different animal altogether.
For a start, what can be considered the ‘main’ cast here is considerably smaller than in the other two films, with Channing Tatum’s Mike going solo as far as the dancing representation goes. The other dancers we see are… well, they’re more performers than outright characters, which after the male bonding road trip of XXL is a definite curve ball. But, in fairness, Tatum does well enough here to make up for such things. His man-of-few-words routine still holds strong, his dance moves are as mouth-watering as ever, and the way his character fits into the story makes for a nice, if understated, capper for the trilogy’s loose arc.
Opposite him, we have Salma Hayek as… well, technically, she’s the love interest as socialite Maxandra, but I’d honestly consider that to be the least interesting part of her relationship with Mike. After an intense dance sequence, Maxandra basically poaches Mike to direct a theatrical strip show in London, with the bulk of the film taking the form of the push-and-pull between her as the producer and Mike as the director. Along with furthering the economic anxieties of the first film, with Mike as the lower-class fish out of water, making that friction this explicit, knowing Soderbergh’s own flings with the studio system (this is the first film of his to get a theatrical release over here since Logan Lucky in 2017, and the man’s been busy in that interim), adds some nice metatextual touches that, naturally, made me warm up to this whole thing even more.
But more so than anything to do with industry politics or lack of a marriage amongst the classes, this film’s core tenet is basically an upgrade and refinement of XXL’s approach to the art of stripping. While the narration from Jemelia George (playing Maxandra’s daughter Zadie) can be a bit much with her explanations of the origins of dance within human history and its ultimate purpose in society, the film’s text overall does a great job of putting the agency of the women involved at the forefront.
The show that Mike and Maxandra put together is a sweaty subversion of the Jane Austen-core ‘your choice is between these two men’ narrative, going from a stuffy period drama into a raucous dance show fronted by leading lady and MC Hannah (Juliette Motamed, the film’s secret weapon). Through that, Soderbergh and writer Reid Carolin use this form of entertainment as an extension of the core intent of feminism: Women having the choice to engage with something like this, without judgement. To that end, it also becomes a showing of Maxandra’s own unrequited desires, managing to speak truth to power about a woman’s right to pleasure without it getting caught up in the aforementioned class critiques (i.e. just because she’s rich doesn’t mean she doesn’t go through the same struggles as other women); intersectionality in full effect.
It takes the character drama of the original, the thoughtful sex-positivity of XXL, and brings them both home with some of the best choreography of all three films and an outright ingenious finale that shows off the romantic tension between Mike and Maxandra purely through dance. It operates much like Ticket To Paradise as an attempt to jump-start the communal experience of going to the cinema to enjoy a movie, right down to the effects of COVID-19 being a brief but crucial part of Mike’s story in-film, only this goes beyond merely presenting just another example of what used to be the norm for cinema before the lockdown fucked everything up.
Instead, it shows Soderbergh still being thoughtful, taking charge with who the target audience of this film is, and wrapping it up in a message of self-empowerment to embrace your fantasies. That it’s not just okay, but natural, for a woman to want to see entertainment like this, and there is absolutely no problem with that. It’s held back somewhat by the lack of characterisation in places, and the romance feels a bit underdone, but with everything else going on, those end up feeling like minor issues compared to what’s done right here. Honestly, I think I like this one the most out of all three films.
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