Something happens when something out there in popular culture excites women en masse --particularly if that something is related to sex. People sit up and pay attention. They write articles. They start discussions at the water cooler at work (or the Starbucks). They ask, "Is this what women want?" And, a lot of the time, they laugh at whatever *it* is.
Take the infamous Fifty Shades of Grey. A book that sold millions of copies. What happened when it went viral? Katie Rophie wrote an article in Newsweek about how the popularity of the novel proved that women--particularly modern, empowered women--wanted to be ravished by a strong, stern man at the end of the day. Articles and blog posts trumpeted how the book "saved marriages" by giving couples the fuel to "spice things up" in the bedroom (I always thought it was weird how few of these articles mention the big M--masturbation. Surely more women just read the book in private and did their thing than actually incorporate the acts described between its covers to their life under the covers). And, more than anything else, people laughed at it. They laughed at it on the Internet, on late night talk shows, in daily life.
Now, I'm not saying that Fifty Shades doesn't deserved to be laughed at (it does, as it's a piece of shit). But I think it's interesting that a book that certainly got a lot of women hot and bothered so quickly became the butt of everyone's joke.
Steven Soderbergh's singular film, Magic Mike, was released six months after the final book in the Fifty Shades triology was released. Another pop culture phenomenon that seemed ripe for mockery, Magic Mike upended everyone's expectations by actually being a good movie. It was one of my favorites of 2012, and I'm gonna defend that goddamn movie until my dying day--it's a great fucking film, made even better by the rock bottom expectations most people had going into it.
But even though Magic Mike got critical accolades, people still treated it like a joke and a silly thing for women to enjoy. Even though the movie is about male friendship, first and foremost. I think people are incapable of taking a movie about male strippers (or, if we're being honest, strippers of any gender) seriously. People see Channing Tatum humping a woman's face to the strains of Ginuwine's "Pony" and they can't think of anything more ridiculous. Though, if given truth serum, I think most heterosexual women would admit that being dry-humped by whatever perfect male they have in their mind is a more than appealing thought.
All of this brings us to Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to Magic Mike that is exactly what people thought the original film should have been. Under the guidance of a new director (Gregory Jacobs), the plot has been stripped down (HAR HAR HAR) and the deeper emotions of the original buffed (GET IT?) out, leaving nothing but oiled up hunks grinding on a parade of women of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages.
Not that I'm complaining.
Magic Mike XXL is a fantastically entertaining sequel, although it's certainly nowhere near as "good" as its predecessor. XXL takes place three years after the events of the original film. Mike Lane (Tat-yum) owns his own furniture design start up just as he dreamed of in the first movie, and he has left stripping to work on his business full time. When the boys--Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), and--my personal favorite--Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello, who takes a much-deserved center role in this film)--contact Mike about performing at a stripper convention in Myrtle Beach, the man can't help but take the opportunity to try out some of his magic moves again.
The movie explains the absence of emcee Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), fellow stripper The Kid (Alex Pettyfer), and Mike's love interest, Brooke (Cody Horn), in a couple throwaway lines of exposition. Who cares about those losers? Onwards and upwards!
Magic Mike XXL is a typical road trip movie. People try to get to a destination and stop and have adventures along the way. There are a lot of memorable scenes that wouldn't be out of place in a porno: the guys stop at a private club in Savannah called "Domina" run by HBIC Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith); the guys end up at the house of a middle-aged, divorced woman (Andie MacDowell) and a group of her friends as they get plastered on expensive wine; Big Dick Richie has a great scene cheering up a lonely gas station clerk. Etc, etc. And then they finally get to the stripper convention and create the act of a lifetime--all new dance numbers to represent the real men underneath all those abs and bedroom eyes.
Magic Mike XXL works because it completely, unashamedly owns its corniness...and it's horniness. This is a film that makes some noise about how women should be worshiped as the goddesses they are and how all women are beautiful--while also exacting a strict standard for how the men in the film look. I kind of like that. It's the reversal of all those comedies where a homely Kevin James-type ends up with Rosario Dawson--because he has inner beauty, dammit! In Magic Mike XXL women get to have the inner beauty and men are all but required to have the outer beauty. It's not fair, it's not right...but it's titillating in its unserious subversiveness.
Eh, I'm probably trying too hard to find the deeper meaning in a film that has very limited depth. Magic Mike XXL is pure spectacle: it's fun, it's funny, it's campy, it's sexy. And it also makes me want to go back and watch the original, which was all of the above adjectives plus quality. The two Magic Mike's work in perfect symbiosis: when taken together, they have the body, the brains, and the heart.
Grade: B
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