Eva Castanendo
Channing Tatum is resuming his renowned role as an exotic dancer in Magic Mike’s Last Dance.
The franchise’s latest instalment, released in UK cinemas on 10 Feb 2023, offers audiences a rush of excitement throughout, whilst avoiding seeming dumb or vacuous.
Background
It’s been eight years since the last Magic Mike film hit cinemas. During this time, Tatum’s character has built a furniture business and seen it go bust because of the pandemic. He has found himself once again with no clear plan or purpose, working as a bartender for high-end charity fundraisers.
At one of these events, he meets Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek), a wealthy socialite in the middle of a very contested divorce from her British media mogul husband. She is feeling lost and hires Mike for a $6,000 dance. Things escalate from there: she ends up offering him a job in London producing and directing an exotic male dancing show on the West End.
Character Driven
The franchise’s first two movies boasted an all-star cast, featuring Joe Manganiello, Matthew McConaughey, Matt Bomer, Alex Pettyfer and Adam Rodriguez. Each of these actor’s characters have their own narrative arch and hold significant weight in the story.
“allowing the spectator to grasp the underlying theme of female desire and empowerment more profoundly”
However, the latest edition focuses on Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek’s characters. Having most of the focus on just two main characters leaves scope for a more extensive and detailed storyline. Audiences can better grasp and appreciate the underlying themes of female desire and empowerment without the distractions that often come with a large cast.
The other characters are instead mostly resigned to the subplot, which follows the production of the London live show.
At first sight, Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a comedy-drama about male strippers – quite a linear and simple idea. It’s main apparent focus is the objectification of the bodies of a bunch of good-looking guys, who each hustle through a series of odd jobs with no purpose in life.
While it’s true that watching the movie doesn’t require a great deal of attention, the messages do also provoke thoughts in audiences, and a range of perspectives are touched upon. It’s made clear that nothing is ever exactly as it seem, and creators clearly make some effort to humanise the characters where possible.
Delivery
As part of her divorce settlement, Maxandra receives the ownership of a theatre on the West End that hosts an old-fashioned and outdated play. It was here that she met her ex-husband, and it holds further sentimental value to her former mother-in-law. Salma Hayek is the perfect fit for this character, a driven and empowered woman that wants to accomplish something both ambitious and misunderstood by her environment.
“equally empowering and exhilarating”
The film is sexy and erotic, but in a way that it does not feel uncomfortable. It is equally empowering and exhilarating, maintaining the desire throughout the whole narrative arch, with a final dance that brings the film to its climax.
Last Dance
This last performance answers a question: do we all crave someone’s sole focus, attention and devotion? Is that what we’re really attracted to, instead of the person itself?
Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a well-delivered combination of music, hot bodies, entertainment, passion and fun. It is not stratospheric, but it makes you spend an enjoyable couple of hours without feeling that you have lost your time watching nonsense.
Featured image courtesy of Morgan Alley on Unsplash. No changes have been made to this image. Image license found here.
evacastanedo
Final Year Journalism student at Cardiff University with a background in content-writing and magazine editorial and a keen interest in news, current affairs and fashion & lifestyle.