When I first heard about Magic Mike some months ago, I thought it sounded like the stupidest movie ever. From the dumb title (Magic Mike? C'mon) to the premise (male strippers? *eye roll*), I figured it would be a less funny version of The Full Monty.
So when a friend suggested that a bunch of us girls go out and see it, I agreed with some hesitation. By this point, I knew that Joe Manganiello (aka Alcide from True Blood) was in it, and he's hot, so I thought that would make it enjoyable. Plus, seeing a movie about male strippers practically screams "Girls Night Out", so I figured it might be a fun adventure even if the movie was cheesy.
...Well, I now stand corrected. Magic Mike is one of the best movies I've seen this summer. Or even this year. And it's not just good in a silly, fun way. It's good in a good way.
Directed with gentle artistry by Steven Soderbergh and starring/produced by heartthrob Channing Tatum, Magic Mike is based loosely on Tatum's own short-lived experience as a dancer/stripper in Tampa after dropping out of college in the late 1990's. As far as I could tell, Tatum does his own dancing in the movie and daaaayuuumm, this guy can move! Tatum plays the titular Mike--30 years old, works construction during the day, strips at night, and dreams of being a custom furniture designer (once he finds a bank that won't turn him down for a loan on account of his terrible credit).You can tell right off the bat that despite Mike's crazy lifestyle (his first scene is waking up with two women in his bed--one of which is the tart, funny Olivia Munn, playing a bisexual grad student), he yearns for something more. He's a smart guy--not to mention charming and good-looking--and he's savvy enough not to get sucked too deeply into the grimy underbelly of stripping (i.e. selling drugs and/or ODing).
At his day job, Mike meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a young, stupid kid who is drifting through life, sleeping on his sister's couch, and trolling Craigslist for jobs. One night, Mike takes Adam to the club he dances at and introduces him to the club's somewhat-but-not-entirely sleazy owner, Dallas (Matthew McConaughey, in the role he was born to play). When one of the strippers passes out backstage and can't perform, it's suddenly Adam's (nicknamed "The Kid") time to shine! Mike pushes him onstage and he clumsily disrobes to a remix of "Like a Virgin". The crowd goes wild.
It's relatively predictable from here on out. At first, The Kid looks up to Mike as a friend and even big brother. Mike flirts with The Kid's intelligent, hardworking, and uptight sister, Brooke, who is concerned for his brother and seemingly impervious to Mike's charms. But after a while, the steady flow of money, drugs, and women goes to The Kid's head, and he becomes involved in that seedy dark side of the stripper lifestyle. Unlike Mike, The Kid is too stupid and immature to resist. And I don't say "stupid" flippantly: I'm not sure if Pettyfer meant to play The Kid this way, or if he's just a bad actor, but The Kid always looks and acts like he has very little going on upstairs.
After a series of drug and money related mishaps, Mike's burgeoning romance with Brooke is on the rocks and his own sense of independence and desire to make something more of himself is challenged by Dallas's plans to move the male revue to Miami. Mike is forced to figure out how to "man up" and decide if easy money and women mean more to him than developing a relationship with someone and working to achieve his actual dreams.
It sounds like a mortality tale and, yeah, it kind of it. The filmmakers take a relaxed approach to sex, but they portray drugs as unequivocally evil. Especially getting involved with the drug trade. But Magic Mike isn't an after school special. While the strippers have their issues, they also have real camaraderie and friendship. Even the villains in the film aren't two-dimensional caricatures. At the end of the day, most of the "bad guys" just want to make money, legally or illegally.
Mike is no saint, and the film ends without any kind of cheesy epilogue where we see him get his life together and realize his dreams. It ends with a promise that he is seriously thinking about getting his life together and taking the steps to realize his dreams. But it's actually more rewarding to see an average guy better himself in small ways than watch some fake Hollywood plot where the heroes and villains are drawn in black and white and the good guy gets exactly what he wants in the end.
Magic Mike is a great summer movie: it's relaxed, it's fun, there are hot guys in it, and so on. Just as Magic Mike himself sees no shame in stripping and partying, but also wants to be and do something more; Magic Mike the film has no shame in being silly and sexy, but also aims for something a little higher than what it already is.
4.5 out of 5 stars
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