de facto film reviews 2 stars

Now an unforeseen trilogy that was started by Oscar-winning auteur Steven Soderbergh with Magic Mike (2012) quickly became an unexpected sleeper hit during that summer movie season. It suddenly generated a reputation as an exuberant hangout movie that spawned an even more amplified sequel of male strippers, abs, air grinding, and bods, with Magic Mike XXL (2015), and now its latest Magic Mike’s Last Dance proves that it has lost its freshness 11 years later. It’s a given that the young women who lined up for the first two in their twenties are mostly married with children in their 30s now (a woman did bring her toddler to my screening), and the film does bring more of a modernist twist of female empowerment to the film, but it really fails to charm with its awkward romance between leads Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek, and with a narrative that exposes itself as something more flimsy and most predictable of the bunch, to the point where the conclusion to the trilogy now looks no more complex or engaging than any other generic Valentine’s Day romantic comedy that often gets slated this time of the year.

Just as he often was in the first two, Magic Mike’s Last Dance opens with Tatum’s Mike character alone and entrepreneurial, even though the first two end abruptly with him getting the girl at the end. This time, after the US emerges itself out of more economic turbulence from the COVID pandemic, Mike is back to where he was in the first film. He just turned 40, his furniture business has failed, and now he works as a makeshift bartender at private events in Miami. He ends up encountering one of his former customers, Kim (Caitlin Gerald), who remembers him as a “cop” in front of her husband when in fact they both recall the dorm sequence where Mike and Adam put on a spectacle in the first film. Kim ends up telling Max (Salma Hayek), who’s stressed and going through a draining divorce, to hire Mike for her own private dance where she offers him $6000. Mike agrees to the transaction and they both end up having a passionate dance, where Mike ends up staying overnight. They are certainly attracted to each other, and the passionate night together already leads to more dealings of Max offering Mike to accompany her out to London with her so he can direct, choreograph, and redo a male dance show version of the patriarchal period piece at her theater she now owns through the divorce of her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

Channing Tatum gives Salma Hayek a steamy lap dance in trailer for Magic Mike's Last Dance | Newshub Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Soderbergh, under his Peter Andrews pseudonym, stages some elegant dance sequences with many striking camera movements and dolly shots ; just as he did in Magic Mike XXL, but it feels more controlled this time around. There are some other joys to be found just as Ayub Kan-Din as Victor, the personal droll butler to Max, and Jemila George as Max’s teenage and sophisticated daughter Zadie, who narrates the film and puts some modern wisdom into the narrative. They both warm up to Mike, and their scenes are some of the highlights in the film. Other wonderful moments Vicki Pepperdine as an uptight British bureaucrat that ends up reversing the shutdown of the play orchestrated by Max’s husband after the male dancers choreograph a hilarious dance in a Deckbus. We also get a hilarious facetime conversation of Mike talking with his “Kings of Tampa“  bros of Big Dick Ritchie, Ken, Tarzan, and Tito that is quickly disrupted by Max.

From there we get some technical execution and some visual imagination to be found in the first hour, the final act doesn’t quite marvel as its predecessors. Perhaps keeping Max more of the sideline as she observes Mike dance in the rain with a fellow woman playing herself would have felt more endearing had Hayek danced with Mike–she showed she has the skill for it in the first act. The lack of innovation only hinders the potential romance that doesn’t quite flourish throughout the film. What’s odd is all the love interests in Magic Mike never really marveled due to a lack of chemistry between Tatum and Adam Heard and Cody Horne in the first, this is one thing Soderbergh has corrected, and it’s left feeling dramatically inert once again. While a lot of situations go awry with Max’s cheating ex-husband Roger (Alan Cox) , who ends up using his connections to shut down the show, the romance between Max and Mike becomes detached and the potential romantic payoff doesn’t come into fruition due to the absence of complexity and vulnerabilities that returning screenwriter Reid Carolin fails to build up or flesh out.

The 'Magic Mike' Universe Is Expanding With A New Film, New Reality Series, And International Live Shows Courtesy of Warner Bros.

After the high ebullience of the loosely constructed but fun Magic Mike Mike XXL, and the vanquishing charm of the first, Magic Mike’s Last Dance doesn’t end on a satisfying high note as you would hope. It feels more like a cash grab that promotes the live show for a quick project that was probably a lot easier to greenlight due the success of the first two films. With mostly an ungainly screenplay and ill-conceived execution, Magic Mike’s Last Dance certainly holds elements that will recollect the joy of the first two, but it’s also such an inferior conclusion where you hope Soderbergh, Carolin, and WB just finally put a final curtain to a film that didn’t really need a sequel in the first place, let alone a third one.

MAGIC MIKE’S LAST DANCE is now playing in theaters.