Magic Mike XXL the review. By Philip Airson, July 2015
Sometimes you just want to sit in a dark room and feel bad about your body, but pretty solid about your dance moves. So I went to see Magic Mike.
WARNING: “Magic” Mike XXL contains no real magicians.
Just a ticket for one I said, standing in a queue containing mostly teenage girls and Cougars. Not good Cougars, but the ones who probably smoke and drink too much, more reminiscent of modern she-pirates. Yet, alas, I am the ugly one here. The solitary male who couldn’t muster one crumb of company to watch other men dance nude. A new low?
As I’ve said, there was actually very little magic in the film in a literal sense. In fact the only magic I recall is bringing Kevin Nash back from the dead (I assumed he was dead after the NWO). The film opens with our man Mike moving furniture in his own removal business (soon to be clothes removal business, chika chika bow.) At this point we learn he can’t even pay his one employee health benefits, and you may wonder will he fight the good fight and end up paying this guy his benefits? Nope! That’s the end of that storyline, and I assume that guy’s wellbeing. So long, hard-working guy, Mikey’s gotta dance!
The boys all joke that some guy called Dallas is dead, so Mike goes to a wake/pool party (seriously) when he finds out they are horrible friends, and in fact Dallas isn’t dead, he just got sick of not wearing sleeves and thus had to leave the group.
They were actually heading to a stripper convention, which is just a well-produced regular strip show, and want Mike to rejoin the ol’ sausage posse! (You may think ‘sausage posse’ is crude, but they actually call themselves ‘res-erection’, so give me a little credit. Also I just registered a trademark on ‘sausage posse’ for my next strip group/band)
Here, at ten minutes in we see our first glimpse of chiseled man-rump. But don’t worry. There is plenty more.
At first Mike was like: “nah.” Then he was like: “yup,” and decided to jump in the frozen yoghurt van they were driving to Myrtle Beach. This is just bonkers in itself, like, ice-cream vans are cool for the summer time, and for being fast-tracked into operation Yewtree, but fro-yo? No-bro! As a man once said: “Fro-yo, you are the celery of deserts, be ice-cream or be nothing”
The gang are heading down the road and hanging out not wearing sleeves and taking drugs and trying to come up with new dances for the last big showdown. At first the guy was like: “nah,” but then he made a girl smile and was like: “yup.” On reflection, his original stance was along the line of ‘no way man we can’t learn a new routine,’ and then (spoiler alert!) not only does he learn a new routine, but all five or six of them learn new routines, with a few new dancers and props! So, God knows what happened here.
The compete checklist for ‘how to dress to look like I used to beat Phil up in school’ is covered in this film. See such wonders as The Backwards Cap, The Slouch Hat, and of course, pork-pie-hat-with-no-shirt-and-a-blazer-combo. I say this mostly from a point of chubby jealousy, of course. Everyone looked super cool and handsome. I imagine. I just have no concept of either, and if this is it, am quite happy being the nerd king!
Here’s the trailer for reference
Mike meets this girl who’s a photographer and keeps popping up kind of as the love interest but they never really get it on aside from Mike full on dipping his leather junk into her face and slapping it about a few times during a dance. This seemed brutal and I can only imagine the smell after multiple takes of that scene! I mean if anyone’s man-crotch would smell passable, I imagine it is ol’ granite face, Channing Tatum’s, however even his knightly aroma must get tiresome.
During the film, Mike reveals that his girlfriend said no to his proposal, even though he had a cat and proposed on a beach near some bacon. Now Mike, first of all, just thinking being handsome and at a beach will be the key to marriage is pretty silly. I’ve been to beaches and stood next to handsome people and I have so far seen zero proposals work, aside from possibly in The Little Mermaid, but she had a singing crab so UP YOUR GAME! Secondly, don’t propose near bacon! Whoever you propose too will ONLY be thinking: “I wish you would stop talking so I can be with bacon.”
Anyway, he decided that as she had said no he would just leave his job and her and go on a road trip to a stripper convention and get women’s faces smelling of leather. So, Mike comes across as an absolute scumbag, right? If my wife and I had a disagreement, my reaction probably wouldn’t be: “well I don’t understand how you feel, I’m just gonna leave my job and go in this yoghurt van to dance for money.” It’s ludicrous.
The final annoyance was that the film ends with the gang doing an Ocean’s 11 style looking-at-fireworks, except you don’t see fireworks, none of them look cool, and the corpse of Kevin Nash is freaking everyone out!
If you go to see this film expecting it to be anything other than good old smutty fun, you’re an idiot. If you just want to see people dance like they have no joints and take off their clothes and stare at fake fireworks, oh boy are you in for a treat.
I myself fall into a third category, which was ‘if you’re hoping to leave with some new life questions.’
1) Why aren’t my friends and me wearing vests and dancing more? Did we miss something? Can we dance as a gang?
2) Should I invest in more rip-off-able clothing? It seems easier and could be used to hilarious effect, although I’d be one strong gust away from prison.
3) Is this degrading to any gender? Or was it fine for both? I think fine for both.
4) Is it ok to groin a lady in the face if you’re wearing leather and are in shape? Should these be my goals?
All in all it wasn’t really a film, it was whatever it was, which was fine. It wasn’t boring, but if you think about any aspect too long you might set fire to your hands and slap yourself in the face repeatedly.
Please can someone now send me stripper pants and frozen yoghurt? I feel like dancing. *puts cap on backwards*
