Welcome to A-Z Movie Reviews. Every Sunday, for the next several months, I will be posting a review of a film in my home movie collection. How it works is, I will be reviewing movies in alphabetical order until I get to the letter Z (Yes, I do have a film that ends in Z). Now I realize there are many ways to alphabetize a film collection, but this is mine so don’t judge me. This is simply for fun.
I have never been to a strip club in my life but Magic Mike was the movie that made me curious about what it would be like to go to one.
What it’s about:
A male stripper teaches a younger performer how to party, pick up women, and make easy money.
There is honestly not much I can say about Magic Mike other than it’s a film about what it’s like for Male strippers. The film stars Channing Tatum as Mike a popular stripper who works at the Xquisite Male Dance Revue run by Dallas (Matthew McConaughey).
Mike has aspirations of leaving the strip world and wants to start his own furniture company. To finance his goal, he does construction by day and strips at night. One day while he’s on one of his construction jobs, he meets a young kid named Adam (Alex Pettyfer) who he takes under his wing.
Adam is living with his big sister Brooke (Cody Horn) and he’s got absolutely no goals in life. For him, becoming a stripper equals easy money so he dives right into it. The problem with Adam is, he goes overboard and becomes arrogant and thinks he’s completely untouchable. He makes a lot of mistakes and Mike ends up having to clean up his messes and they literally cost him everything.
It’s been a very long time since I watched Magic Mike and I found myself comparing it to Hustlers. Obviously, in Magic Mike the guys are not doing the things the women did so that’s not what I am comparing. What I was thinking about was the differences in the male vs. female strip world.
For instance, In Hustlers, when Destiny (Constance Wu) gets paid for her dances, the boss wants a cut which she gives him. Then, as she walks out of the office, a bouncer talks to her about how she can come to him for anything she needs and blah, blah, blah. He then proceeds to hold out his hand for some cash which she begrudgingly gives him.
In Magic Mike, Adam (Pettyfer) has just made money from dancing and he proceeds to try and pay Dallas (McConaughey). Dallas tells him “Every man keeps every dollar he makes on that stage” and then he even pays him money that he owes him. A very big contrast in my opinion.
Sure the men in Magic Mike have drama but, it’s nothing compared to what female strippers experience. Now, maybe I’m wrong and male strippers have experienced some rough sides to their job, but, if that’s the case, that’s what the director Steven Soderbergh could have done with this film. All we see is things like Mike struggling to try and get a business loan, working through trying to develop relationships with females, who he’s not even in a real relationship with I might add, and his battle with leaving the stripping world.
Magic Mike is entertaining enough but there’s a lot of things that could have been done with this story to make it better than it actually was. It was pretty much like making a male strip movie just for the sake of saying “hey look, we made a male stripper movie!” am I going to stop watching it? of course not because I love Channing Tatum but I love watching him dance even more.
Other Thoughts
- Channing Tatum has a fabulous booty. Sorry not sorry.
- I don’t believe in body shaming but, Adam Rodriguez probably should have hit some squats to make his derriere a little less flabby.
- When Mike (Tatum) says “Look at what she’s wearing, she came here to be bothered.” as he looks at the “birthday girl” (Camryn Grimes) in the club, it annoys the hell out of me. A woman does not dress a certain way to be “bothered” and I don’t know who came up with that line but it’s on my list of the cringiest ones.
- I couldn’t picture anyone more perfect than Matthew McConaughey to play Dallas. He’s so over the top and Matthew is amazing. Also, we wouldn’t have people saying “Alright, Alright, Alright” if he hadn’t played that role.
- Joe Manganiello and Kevin Nash are definitely not the best dancers but they tried.
- If my brother tells me he’s working as a stripper, I’ll take his word for it. I do not need to go down to his job to watch him dance to prove he is.
- The scene when Big Dick Richie (Manganiello) injures his back after picking up a girl who is a little heavier than the other girls at the strip club, is extremely problematic. Girls who are not skinny already feel self-conscious, having a scene like that doesn’t help.
- What girl has male strippers over while their boyfriends are in the next room? I would never.
- Adam (Pettyfer) is a lazy freeloader and if I was Mike (Tatum), I would have whooped his ass if someone broke into my place and I had to pay them my hard earned money because he did something stupid.
- Every time I watch Matthew McConaughey do the final dance in the film, I can’t help thinking about how he said his G-string broke during that scene because you can see the moment it happens but he handled it well.
Magic Mike is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
