‘Magic Mike XXL’ Review: Return to the stage

MANILA, Philippines – It is easy to underestimate Gregory Jacob’s Magic Mike XXL as just another brainless but sexually charged romp, designed to delight the moneyed female demographic with the excessive display of bare abs and buttocks.

However, strip away from the film its spectacle-filled finale and the few humorous routines in the middle, it is nothing more than a road flick, with its participants engaged in various conversations about how all of them have not found fulfillment outside their stripper jobs and how their last run at dancing for a sizable audience will restore their faith in themselves.

It’s all depressing, really. Remove the pretty faces and their owner’s careless lifestyles and you’re left with a document on the state of a nation of aimless hedonistic free spirits. Amidst divorces, economic burdens, and business failures, they choose to breeze through their problems with escape, traveling from Florida to Myrtle Beach for a male stripper convention where they choose to do their retirement routine. Along the way, they see the south and witness the fallacy of America, the rich and the beautiful.

Unhappily ever after

When Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike ended, it seemed that all its characters found their respective happy endings. Those who found happiness on stage with just their tight thongs on got what they wanted, which is basically fame and fandom. Mike (Channing Tatum), on the other hand, got his girl with all his integrity intact.

Magic Mike XXL opens to show that the last film’s somewhat happy endings are short-lived. Mike is alone. His business is failing. His life is a mess. When faced with an opportunity to relive his glory days as a prized male entertainment by his former colleagues, he grabs it and joins what remains of his motley band of bum-baring outsiders (Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Matt Bomer, Adam Rodriguez) to dance his final dance.

Buddy flick

The story’s sparse, just the way it should be. Romance is hinted at but it doesn’t overpower the film’s obsession with male bonding, which is essentially what makes the film so alluring to women since it provides an approximation as to what goes on inside the minds of men. It is female-oriented and also a buddy flick, keeping female viewers satisfied with its images of near-naked men who are all too game to gyrate and do other silly things, and the boyfriends they force to watch with them with idle chatter about sexual desires and other nonsensical things.

Given that, the road to the stripper convention isn’t all that nice and dandy, with Mike and his friends straying from their original plan of performing their famed routines after a brief encounter with drugs and self-realizations.

A few bumps along the way would then force Mike to unearth former flames and meet new ones. This is where the film reveals its ulterior thrusts, which isn’t necessarily the showcase of sculpted male bodies, but the exposure of this secret and most likely fantastical face of the American South, where races are happily segregated in their respective lustful desires.

America the bootyful

The film is either grossly clueless or brilliantly satirical. After the first film’s exploration of female fantasies, which has been rightfully criticized for being too clean and too vanilla, Magic Mike XXL seems all too eager to reflect on what’s happening on the other side of the fence.

The film can be argued to offer more diversity, even having Mike share his spotlight with an African-American male entertainer in his climactic dance. However, it all feels put-on. It’s gesture of having a stripper’s showcase that is supposedly more representative of America came in a little bit too late, perhaps as a knee-jerk reaction rather than as an authentic appreciation of equal rights for earthly pleasures.

There is a rather awkward close-up on Mike’s face while he is performing his last routine. A less adventurous director would have focused on featuring the intriguingly choreographed gig in all it’s splendor, but Jacobs, who has been smart Soderbergh’s producer in a number of features, decides to insert the close-up, stealing the attention from the nudity to a peculiar look in Mike’s eyes which is less attributable to romantic satisfaction than it is to temporary fulfillment. Onstage, Mike is himself, magical amidst all the world’s mundane concerns.

The film ends with a similar look in Mike’s eyes, only this time he isn’t onstage but is watching the 4th of July fireworks after a successful show. He witnesses America, as can be seen through the indulgent glamorification that the film commits in favor of the working class and the filthy rich who fetishize over their efforts, as similarly situated as him – temporarily fulfilled even amidst all the world’s pressing concerns, all of which have been conveniently left out of the flick for your viewing and guiltless pleasure. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. Profile photo by Fatcat Studios