Why am I so surprised that one of the main things I took away from Magic Mike was good acting? I guess it was not to be expected from a movie starring Channing Tatum and filled with male striptease routines and a fair share of meaningless sex. But Tatum, whose former experiences as a male stripper is what the film is loosely based upon, follows up on a very funny showing in 21 Jump Street with a likeable and honest performance in Magic Mike.
Tatum found himself in the Tampa/Ybor area during his stripping days, so that’s where this story is set. He plays the title role, a roofer by day and on-stage lady pleaser by night with hopes for a brighter future for himself. He meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer) one day at a roofing gig, and through a couple of coincidences has “the kid” tagalong to one of his shows at club Xquisite. Well of course that night the group of exotic dancers are short a member—along with Mike, there’s the club owner Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) and a few others who are there more so in the background than anything else—so they call on Adam to lose his dancing virginity. The youngest of the group, he’s a big hit with the crowd and earns enough cash for the night to be convinced this job is right for him.
There’s gotta be a love story in here somewhere. Running parallel to the scenes of nightlife partying and partial male nudity is the plotline between Mike and Adam’s older sister Brooke (Cody Horn with a very good performance alongside bigger stars than her), who isn’t a big endorser of her brother’s new job. She makes Mike promise to take care of Adam, which he does for a while until the kid begins ruining things on his own. It was inevitable that would happen.
Her and Mike’s relationship is a well-done slow burn, progressing in a direction and at a speed that is sensible and easy to rally behind. There’s still the friction between the two of them, what with all Mike being a free-spirited exotic dancer and Brooke being an uptight nurses’ assistant. The friction builds when Adam makes his young and dumb mistakes, leaving Brooke with Mike to blame for not looking after him closely enough.
Veteran director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Contagion) does a classy job with the source material at hand. In Magic Mike, there’s plenty of dance numbers with photoshopped-looking physiques for the women and men who are buying their tickets to see those scenes. It should be noted that those scenes are positioned well throughout the movie and not overdone, though. For the audience members looking for something more/different than that, or for those reluctant to even be at the theater, there’s some good news for you as well. Magic Mike may not have the strongest, most original storyline or character arcs, but a respectable attempt is made at both those things as well as dialogue and acting that won’t have you rolling your eyes. That’s certainly more than I had expected.
Oh, and there’s some female nudity as well. Let’s not forget about that.
Magic Mike will be a box office hit, and it actually kind of deserves to be. Much worse has had moviegoer dollars piled onto it, and this time Channing Tatum is on the positive side of that remark.
Critic’s Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Daniel Feingold can be reached at dfeingold91@gmail.com.
Loading ...
