1. Before all the hype about this film I didn’t really know who Channing Tatum was. (Dear John? What? Definitely not my kind of film). I think I thought he was the same person as Taylor Lautner – generic man with muscle that people seem to go on about.
2. I thoroughly dislike Mathew McConahey. I have never seen him in anything remotely approaching acceptable (although I do hear good things about Killer Joe) and I will never forgive him for being so incredibly annoying in Sex and the City.
3. The only reason I watched this film is because of the mostly naked men.
Given the above, you’ll probably appreciate that my expectations of this film were pretty low. I don’t trust Steven Soderberg as a director after the disaster that was Ocean’s Twelve, and I don’t really understand the fascination with seeing Mathew McConahey strip (why does no one ever mention that Alex Pettyfer is there too!?). I imagined there would be lots of loud music, bright colourful lighting, and excessive quantities of fake tan and baby oil - The Chippendales meets Chicago or Suckerpunch. More burlesque, fewer bow ties.
No bow ties thank God, but the costumes were your classic male stripper costumes – macs and umbrellas for ‘it’s raining men’, firemen, army guys, and the American sailor. Not my personal cup of tea but there we go. Not that I’m critiquing the stripping, although that really should be the point when talking about this film. Frustratingly, I actually feel the need to mention the plot. The highly frustrating and completely superfluous plot.
It’s all great with the new kid learning the ropes from the seasoned professional – it’s a tried and tested story and something we can all get on board with, so why the almost compulsive need to start making everything go wrong two-thirds of the way through? It’s something that has ruined several, otherwise very good, films. Why the decision to suddenly start making things fall apart? It’s practically a declaration of insecurity by the writers – they’re not confident that you’re still paying attention; that the main theme is good enough to keep you interested, so they panic and include some completely unnecessary drama when I’m sure most viewers would be quite happy with only modest plot-development. That way they could concentrate on what is, after all, the main point of the film – the visuals. Note to film-makers the world over – if the film is about looking good, and it looks good, that’s probably enough. Inception is the prime example of this. It was a fantastic new idea, it looked phenomenal and I loved it… until it all started going wrong. It would have been so much better letting everything all go to plan, allowing us to simply sit and marvel at the spectacle instead of worrying and getting even more confused than we already were. As it was, it made the film too long, too complicated, and made me lose patience. Sort it out Hollywood
Back to Magic Mike. I now know who Channing Tatum is and I also now know that that guy can dance! Whether you enjoy the stripping aspect or not he is hugely impressive on-stage and I could quite happily sit at watch him for hours. As long as he’s dancing, not acting – he is much less impressive at that. The film mostly centres around his character but even after watching it all I’m not really sure who it is he was trying to play. I’m not entirely convinced by any of his decisions nor by his interactions with the obligatory love interest – Brooke – the overly-sensible sister of ‘The Kid’ (Pettyfer). Mathew McConerhey’s character is an odd one as well. In theory he’s one of the good guys, but I didn’t like him. But maybe that’s because I find Mathew McConerhey almost repulsive to watch (an unpleasant combination of face/accent/attitude). Nor did I like ‘The Kid’ by the end when he’d gone and messed everything up. Or Brooke, a character that had all the depth of a paddling pool.
So the plot was annoying, the characters unconvincing, and it involved Mathew McConerhey. But I don’t care. I really enjoyed this film. It was fun, it was lively and it was actually funny at some points. As long as you take this film at face value, all the little flaws don’t matter at all and I would happily watch this film again. As long as I can fast-forward through Mathew McConhery in the PVC thong.
3.5 Stars
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