I’ve never been to a male strip club, and I’m not saying that I’m about to hop into my car and race off to Minneapolis to find one. However, Magic Mike was pretty entertaining. I’ll admit that all I knew about it before watching it was what a friend had told me: “Yeah, that’s about male strippers. Apparently there’s a bunch of naked dudes.”
The male strippers are never actually seen completely naked, though many butt cheeks are shaken on stage.
The film tells the story of 19-year-old Adam (Alex Pettyfer) who gets fired from his job and is bumming around town when he sees a pal from his former work. Mike (Channing Tatum), whom we later learn has the title of “Magic” Mike for his insane dancing/hot stripping skills, takes him in and introduces him to the scene of getting ladies and shaking his hips all sexy-like.
Also training Adam is Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), who is the head honcho of the strip joint and has big dreams of bringing the boys to Miami where the stripping scene is as bumping (pun intended) as can be.
Everything is going just swell for little old Adam, as he soon becomes a crowd favorite among the ladies, young and old. That is, until he’s also introduced to the ever-present drug presence; it takes him in quickly and Adam digs himself into a hole of sex, drugs and more drugs. And more sex.
If you think about a movie made about strippers, you probably also think of words like: sex, women, the objectifying of sexes in the media. All of these are present in this film though not in an incredibly distracting manner. I can’t say I was ever offended by the actions of the strippers onstage or by the women’s treatment of the exotic dancers dry humping them into the floor.
I learned after watching this film that it basically tells us the late adolescence and early adulthood of our shining star, Channing Tatum.
He was, as the film conveys, actually picked up off the street by a strip club owner on account of his ridiculous dancing talent. Tatum holds physics in his hand, and using his dance moves, challenges its very laws as he glides his tush from side to side.
If it’s booties you want, then you’ll be greatly satisfied this weekend. There’s sufficient profanity usage and even a likeable romance story in between stage performances. I have to say, I was impressed with Channing Tatum’s performance in this role.
After seeing him back to back in Magic Mike along with 21 Jump Street, I’m beginning to take a liking to him on the big screen. It’s a good story, so give it a go this weekend. I award this movie three and a half stars out of five.