Judging by its box office (roughly $40 million opening weekend) bored gays like myself and overweight brides to be and their maids had a lot of time on their hands this weekend and hit the multiplexes in gaggling hoards to see Magic Mike--the Flashdance of the new millennia. A stripper with a basic heart of gold looks to break out of their current life and do what they really love---in this instance build custom furniture out of crap he found washed up on the beach. And yes that is the basic premise of this movie. There is a subplot about how he teaches a younger guy how to strip, party, pick up women and make easy money and drugs but these are all plot devices to show what a good guy he is--while he strips, parties, does drugs and tries to pick up women.
Warner Brothers did an excellent job of marketing this picture as an event movie for gays and girls to get together and go see by focusing on the the stripping show that goes on in the movie. Trailers both red band and PG rated showed half naked guys dancing and Channing Tatum throwing off a few witty bon mots. And kudos to them for doing that. Be warned, however, while there are strip dances and the fleeting glance of ass, it doesn't make up nearly as much of the movie as they would really have you believe.
Filmed in his traditional muted yellow tones this is very much a Steven Soderbergh film--talky, off the cuff, slightly improvised, gritty--did I say talky and occasionally slow paced. You are getting the story of a stripper, but about how a 30 year old stripper is trying to come to grips with the direction of his life and what he thinks is important, a story supposedly loosely based on Channing Tatum's early years stripping. Don't get me wrong there is stripping here but sporadic at times and fleeting the few full on scenes are with Channing except for one exceptionally bizarre one at the end with Matthew McConaughey as the full of himself club owner Dallas. I will say that all the strip performances are laughers (the movie audience was laughing), whether this was done intentionally or whether this is just the nature of watching male strippers I couldn't really say (and just don't really have enough $1 bills to go out and do the research). At times I did feel like I was watching a white-trashy version of Step Up.
The reviews of this movie were generally positive and I think that is owed a lot to people going in with one idea of the movie is going to be and then finding out it is another. Again marketing. I tell you these things so you won't be disappointed which is bound to happen to some folks when they go to this movie looking for a raucous, raunchy good time and get an introspective gritty male stripper drama (never thought you'd see that as a movie description!).
Should you go see the movie? I honestly can't tell you that. There are a few laughs, a couple of decent shots of Tatum's ass--though there are just as many shots of women's boobs--which I think they did to try and counteract the underlying current of "bro-homoness" that runs through the film and between Tatum and Alex Pettyfer. Is it a good movie? I'm still not sure even after a day to process it. I can see what they were trying to do but am not sure they were totally successful at doing it. It's not a bad movie--this isn't Showgirls--a movie of such high camp classic awfulness that it makes it almost unwatchable at times. But it isn't a great movie either--at times slow, a bit confusing, more than a little eye rolling and sometimes you wonder is Tatum acting acting or just acting like himself. Though McConaughey does some serious scenery chewing (though still not as good as Charlize Theron in that Snow White movie) and the men playing the strippers are nice to look at but they have little to no actual dialogue--living that mantra--don't talk just look pretty. Maybe that's reason enough to go see it for yourself--the boys are real pretty.
Warner Brothers did an excellent job of marketing this picture as an event movie for gays and girls to get together and go see by focusing on the the stripping show that goes on in the movie. Trailers both red band and PG rated showed half naked guys dancing and Channing Tatum throwing off a few witty bon mots. And kudos to them for doing that. Be warned, however, while there are strip dances and the fleeting glance of ass, it doesn't make up nearly as much of the movie as they would really have you believe.
Filmed in his traditional muted yellow tones this is very much a Steven Soderbergh film--talky, off the cuff, slightly improvised, gritty--did I say talky and occasionally slow paced. You are getting the story of a stripper, but about how a 30 year old stripper is trying to come to grips with the direction of his life and what he thinks is important, a story supposedly loosely based on Channing Tatum's early years stripping. Don't get me wrong there is stripping here but sporadic at times and fleeting the few full on scenes are with Channing except for one exceptionally bizarre one at the end with Matthew McConaughey as the full of himself club owner Dallas. I will say that all the strip performances are laughers (the movie audience was laughing), whether this was done intentionally or whether this is just the nature of watching male strippers I couldn't really say (and just don't really have enough $1 bills to go out and do the research). At times I did feel like I was watching a white-trashy version of Step Up.
The reviews of this movie were generally positive and I think that is owed a lot to people going in with one idea of the movie is going to be and then finding out it is another. Again marketing. I tell you these things so you won't be disappointed which is bound to happen to some folks when they go to this movie looking for a raucous, raunchy good time and get an introspective gritty male stripper drama (never thought you'd see that as a movie description!).
Should you go see the movie? I honestly can't tell you that. There are a few laughs, a couple of decent shots of Tatum's ass--though there are just as many shots of women's boobs--which I think they did to try and counteract the underlying current of "bro-homoness" that runs through the film and between Tatum and Alex Pettyfer. Is it a good movie? I'm still not sure even after a day to process it. I can see what they were trying to do but am not sure they were totally successful at doing it. It's not a bad movie--this isn't Showgirls--a movie of such high camp classic awfulness that it makes it almost unwatchable at times. But it isn't a great movie either--at times slow, a bit confusing, more than a little eye rolling and sometimes you wonder is Tatum acting acting or just acting like himself. Though McConaughey does some serious scenery chewing (though still not as good as Charlize Theron in that Snow White movie) and the men playing the strippers are nice to look at but they have little to no actual dialogue--living that mantra--don't talk just look pretty. Maybe that's reason enough to go see it for yourself--the boys are real pretty.
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