Magic Mike (2012) starring Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Cody Horn, Matt Bomer, Olivia Munn, Joe Manganiello, Matthew McConaughey, Adam Rodríguez, Kevin Nash directed by Steven Soderbergh Movie Review

Magic Mike (2012)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Channing Tatum in Magic Mike (2012)

A Tale of Two Strippers

Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) is a man of many talents; by day he labours as a builder, he also builds one of a kind pieces of furniture and by night he puts his toned body on show as a stripper at Xquisite, the club run by Dallas (Matthew McConaughey). It is on the building site he meets down on his luck Adam (Alex Pettyfer) and how Adam is introduced to the world of stripping, an attractive world of drugs, women, money and partying. But whilst Mike gets close to Adam's sister Brooke (Cody Horn) Adam gets carried away with the life style despite Mike trying to keep him grounded. With ambitions of going in to business for himself Mike soon discovers that he isn't going to break away easily.

Don't you love the people who make trailers for movies, every time I saw an advert for "Magic Mike" it made it look like a 90 minute stripping show of men with ridiculous bodies gyrating on stage to loud music. Yet when you start to watch you realise that whilst we are talking about a movie which capitalizes on actors with bodies which make most men jealous this isn't a stripper movie. Talk about false marketing as whilst I am sure that it worked in that a certain audience demographic dug into their pockets to watch Channing Tatum flex his muscles I wonder how many really enjoyed the end result.

Alex Pettyfer and Matthew McConaughey in Magic Mike (2012)

Now that leads me to something I heard about "Magic Mike" before I watched it and that was that it was supposedly based on Channing Tatum's own experiences from before he became an actor. I couldn't see it going purely on the trailers but as I watched I sort of came around to it and could imagine it as we are taken into the crazy world of Mike, stripping and trying to make something of yourself.

And that leads me to what really surprised me about "Magic Mike" as it actually has a storyline, not exactly an original one because on one hand we have Mike wanting to get out of the industry and make something of himself whilst Adam gets sucked in to the party culture, which is reminiscent of "A Tale of Two Bunnies". But it has a storyline and so whilst we have plenty of ripped bodies, erotic dancing and lots sexual humour there is actually depth to it as well, some drama and even some emotion.

What this all boils down to is that "Magic Mike" kind of surprised me as it was not the glitzy, loud movie I expected it to be and at times even felt like a budget movie with an independent look. And it also had a storyline, a cliche and ultimately familiar one but at least one which gave it more depth than I was anticipating.


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