Has the magic gone out of Mike? No, not at all. I realize from a quick glance at the film’s current rating on Rotten Tomatoes that I’m swimming against the tide when I call Magic Mike’s Last Dance a worthy end to the franchise. But it’s by far the film with the most heart. And for all you naysayers who watched the trailer and said there wasn’t any chemistry between Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek Pinault, prepare to eat some crow with a side dish of don’t judge a film by its trailers.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance glides in with a voiceover praising dance as a way of recognizing life’s important moments…or something of that nature. I was too distracted by the fact that the film had a voiceover that I may have spaced on the actual details. The voiceover – provided by a character we’ll meet later – explains that Mike owned a small furniture company in Miami that was forced to close its doors as a result of the pandemic.
Mike’s now adrift and full of unrealized dreams. Did he want to become a bartender? No, but his options were limited so that’s where we pick up his story.
Mike‘s wrapping up working at a fundraiser when the stunning, disgustingly wealthy woman (played by Oscar nominee Salma Hayek Pinault) hosting the shindig invites him to stick around. Maxandra Mendoza’s heard from a friend that he has a particular set of skills and wonders if he’d like to show them to her. Mike’s not in that line of work anymore and besides, he used to get $60,000 for a dance. What?! Whoa, that’s a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?
She’s willing to pay him $6,000 and Mike, who seconds earlier was a definite no, quickly becomes a definite yes.
Pelvic thrusts, sensuous swaggering, and the most acrobatic pull-ups outside of the Olympics follow. Max is hooked and offers Mike $60,000 if he travels with her to London. Mike’s social calendar is empty, so after a bit of hemming and hawing he agrees, although he has no idea what he’s supposed to do once they cross the pond.
Max is separated from her cheating media mogul husband and as part of their agreement, she’s taken over ownership of his family’s historic The Rattigan theatre. Mike’s $6,000 erotic dance woke up a passion inside Max that she never felt before, and now she wants to share that excitement with other women. To do so, she wants to stage a spectacular erotic version of Isabel Ascendant, a stale period piece currently hogging the theatre’s spotlights.
Isabel Ascendant is the story of a woman forced to choose between a loveless marriage and a social misfit, and Max wants to show that women can have it all by putting on a one-night-only strip show. The lead actor of Isabel, Hannah (Juliette Motamed), is all in on representing women who demand to be given agency and who will no longer be forced to be subservient to the wants and needs of men. Hannah’s evolution plays out on stage while surrounded by gorgeous nearly naked men.
The final film reunites Tatum with Magic Mike’s director Steven Soderbergh and Reid Carolin, who penned all three movies, and they brought in dancers from the London, Las Vegas, Berlin, and Australia Magic Mike Live stage shows. Bringing dancers so familiar with the Magic Mike vibe gives the dance numbers extra zing.
Additional supporting players include Jemilia George as Zadie Rattigan and Ayub Khan-Din as Victor. Zadie is Max’s teenage daughter who’s the voice of reason when all the adults around her are floundering. She’s also the voiceover who pipes in occasionally and provides a little necessary exposition. Victor is Max’s long-suffering righthand man whose scoffs and looks of disdain keep the household in check.
Channing Tatum’s come a long way since his strip club days, but he’s still got all the right moves. When Tatum takes the floor, he’s the real deal. And a decade after first ripping off his shirt and displaying his incredible physique as Magic Mike, Tatum’s honed his acting skills to the degree that he’s now capable of playing the quieter relationship moments just as effectively as the physically demanding dance routines.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance is more intimate than either of its predecessors, with the film concentrating on building the relationship between Channing Tatum’s Mike and Salma Hayek Pinault’s Max. There’s not much else to the plot, and the success of this final outing depends on whether you buy into Tatum and Hayek Pinault as a couple. Fortunately, Tatum and Hayek Pinault play incredibly well off each other. There’s a nice balance to the characters that allows Hayek Pinault and Tatum to transition back and forth between playful and sexy and uncertain and vulnerable. It also doesn’t hurt that Tatum and Hayek Pinault fully commit to this fictional world where dance can solve 99% of life’s problems.
I chose to allow the plot’s underlying grab bag of mixed – and at times weirdly misogynistic – messages to remain in the background. A Magic Mike film doesn’t need to preach or teach, it just needs to have enough well-choreographed dance numbers to make the dialogue-driven moments worth sitting through. This third and final film fulfills that requirement, dishing out impressive numbers including one that defies description. (It involves spectacular choreography while rain falls on the stage.)
Overanalyzing the underlying themes will send you down a slippery slope that doesn’t lead anywhere pleasant. If you toss those themes aside, then Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a sexy, fun-filled two hours of romance and dance.
GRADE: B
MPAA Rating: R for sexual material and language
Running Time: 1 hour 52 minutes
Release Date: February 10, 2023
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
