"People like to see what they can't have," the muscular, contoured Mike (Channing Tatum) tells Max Mendoza (Salma Hayek). And for all those who saw any of Magic Mike's previous films, a little bell rings.
And those who don't, too.
Steven Soderbergh, the director who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with his debut film sex, lies and video, the director of The Great Scam, Erin Brockovich and Oscar winner for Traffic returns, as well as he started it in 2012, to close Mike's story. And we do not know why, because he looks tired, without any trace of his style or those geniuses with which he brushed his films.
Does your belly hurt? Mike and Max, or Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek, in Steven Soderbertgh's film. WB Photos
Unless it is understood that, more than averaging the film, a poster of Intermediate appears, to the story of nothing, more than to baffle the public.
However, for those who are new to the world of Magic Mike, the character has its origin in Channing Tatum himself, who took it from his first experiences in Tampa, Florida. Here is a voiceover that drives the story. It's not Mike's, it's a female voice.
Stripper ruined by the pandemic
Underwater, on stage in London, the amazing Mike.
Mike Lane is – or was – a stripper, whose dreams were wiped out by the Covid pandemic, including a business that went down and now works as a bartender in Miami.
And there she is, serving drinks at a charity gala when the organizer of the gala, the aforementioned Max Mendoza, hears from a friend that the bartender used to be something else. And Max, who is a billionaire – or, better to clarify, the husband she is divorcing is – calls him and asks for a private dance there, in his mansion overlooking the sea. He offers her 6,000 dollars, and no one, during the acrobatic, sensual and frenetic dance, will look at the ocean.
And so it all began. The wife of millionaire husband and Mike, turned bartender.
We are not going to tell how that night ends, but Max offers him ten times more and takes him on a private plane to London, without telling him how he will earn that figure.
No, it is not wiggling, but directing and choreographing a play (Isabel ascends) that takes place in the theater of her husband's family, which she wins from her divorce process.
Hot dance. Mexican Hayek, 56, dances with Tatum (42).
Well, the play, which presents a somewhat outdated gender politics, is going to have some changes. Of dialogues. Of scenes. Wardrobe. And interpreters, because they will do a casting for the male dance show.
Obviously there will be problems to get to the premiere, Max in one of those loses the theater that is owned by the family of his ex, and Mike looks at times bewildered in the relationship with his employer / lover / whatever.
The film has enough physical display, but lacks some heart.
Magic Mike's films always made clear the power of women. So it baffles that in this film, and at this point, one of the dances is presented with the phrase "The sexiest act of submission is to ask permission", regarding how a man should approach a woman.
It is like clarifying something that is implied here, the same as making the dancers talk when the best thing they know how to do is that, dance on stage.
For those who long for the original film, there is a cameo (one of the girls, the friend who recommends Mike to Max), and the Class B dancers appear in a somewhat failed Zoom. Obviously, Tatum and Soderbergh have fun, the problem is that this fun does not reach the living room whole.
"Magic Mike: The Last Dance"
Good
Dramatic comedy. United States, 2023. Original title: "Magic Mike's Last Dance". 112', SAM 16. Of: Steven Soderbergh. With: Channing Tatum, Salma Hayek, Ayub Khan-Din, Jemelia George, Alan Cox. Available in: HBO Max.
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