Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023)

Smith’s Verdict: ***1/2
Reviewed by Tanner Smith

Steven Soderbergh’s 2012 sleeper hit “Magic Mike” was a winning film. It had a good mix of arthouse and mainstream appeals, it took the audience into the world of a male stripper who had other aspirations (it also helped that it was loosely based on its star Channing Tatum’s experiences as a stripper before he became an actor), and I’m sure it also spoke to a certain demographic that just loved to see scantily clad men put on a show in scene-stealing numbers.

I don’t think it needed a sequel, especially one as silly as 2015’s “Magic Mike XXL.” But it was enjoyable enough for what it was, and it was nice seeing Mike in a different light while returning to the spotlight for “one last dance.” (But I still think it would have been more interesting if Cody Horn’s love-interest character from the first film returned–I don’t know what fans were talking about in their hatred towards her.)

Now, over a decade since the original film, we have “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” which has a mix of the grittiness of the original and some of the wacky antics of the second. (But despite differing tones, all three films feel like they belong in the same universe. Credit for that goes not only to Soderbergh, who produced but didn’t direct the second film and returns to the director’s chair for this one, but also screenwriter Reed Carolin, who wrote all three.)

Maybe it’s because I admire what Soderbergh, Carolin, and returning star Channing Tatum bring to this franchise that I don’t mind the tonal shifts and I still rather enjoyed “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” even more than “Magic Mike XXL.”

When we first see Tatum’s Mike Lane in “Last Dance,” he’s a bartender for a catering company, after the global pandemic caused his furniture business to crash. (I like that this film shows us characters struggling in economic crisis, just as the original “Magic Mike” was a statement about the post-2008 economic crash.) In a fun little cameo appearance, Caitlin Gerard’s Kim returns from the original film as one of Mike’s former clients–Mike pretended to be a cop to put on a show for her. Kim works as a lawyer for business mogul Maxandra “Max” Mendoza (Salma Hayek Pinault), who is hosting the fundraising event for which Mike is tending bar. When Max, who is depressed and struggling herself, hears of Mike’s former vocation (the stripping, not the furniture business), she invites him inside her luxurious Miami estate and pays him to give her a dance.

And does he ever, proving that even in his 40s, Channing Tatum still has some moves. He puts on a hell of a show for Max, and wouldn’t you know it–this is only the beginning…

Max pays Mike to accompany her to London for some time. (But nothing physical is to happen–how much you want to bet something physical does happen between these two? I joke, but Tatum and Hayek do share good chemistry together.) It’s only when Mike is in London with her does he realize why he’s there: to direct a stage show at a theater called the Rattigan, owned by Max’s divorced husband Roger (Alan Cox). Though reluctant at first, Mike accepts Max’s request to turn a stuffy period-piece romance into a wild male-stripper fantasy show with a message of female empowerment.

It’s very much “hey-kids-let’s-put-on-a-show” as Mike and Max bring in new dancers to turn this show into something special. But it’s not as flashy as you’d think–it’s surprisingly subdued in the scenes where they rehearse and put their all into it. Any other film, it’d feel more joyous–but this is “Magic Mike,” after all.

Although, the influence of “Magic Mike XXL” does come in a strange moment where the dancers must convince an uptight bureaucrat on a bus to approve the theatre renovations in preparation for the big finale. That felt a bit out of place in this film, but…eh. It made me laugh, so it gets a pass.

And the show, which takes up the film’s final act, is wild enough that it was worth the wait. It’s well-choreographed, well-shot, and rather exciting.

So maybe “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” isn’t as gritty or as sexy as the original film, but why criticize it as such? I enjoyed it more than “Magic Mike XXL,” which I liked for what it was, and I enjoy “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” for what it is. And even if I can see Mike and Max’s romance coming a mile away, I still applaud it. Mike deserves some happiness in his life–I think Salma Hayek Pinault can give it to him.

But you uptight “Magic Mike” fans better not cause her to be written off like you did for Cody Horn’s character! (Yeah, I don’t think I’ll get over that.)