Wednesday, 13 September 2023

VOD: Magic Mike's Last Dance (dir: Steven Soderbergh, 2023)

"I don't really do that any more."

The law of diminishing returns is very evident in this bizarre trilogy-capper that finds Mike (Channing Tatum) bartending at a high-class charity function held by a wealthy near-divorcee Max (Salma Hayek Pinault)...and one private dance and rapid-fire montage later, he is charged with transforming a staid rep theatre in London (somehow involved in the divorce settlement) into an exotic male dancer experience, i.e. a one-step-removed half-movie-length advert for the Magic Mike stage show.  The film is essentially a two-hander between the leads, who thankfully have enough easy-going chemistry and knowing experience to deliver the woeful script, there is a dreadful intermittent voice-over by Max's daughter that adds nothing, and there are annoying moments of fly-on-the-wall documentary-style shooting at odd moments.  Ostensibly the film is about re-tooling a period costume drama into a statement on female empowerment (i.e. by adding male strippers), but this is simply a silly film with a quite ridiculously daft final act. 

 

No comments: