When the first Magic Mike part hit the cinemas more than 10 years ago, the film about a group of male strippers led by Channing Tatum was for many a wearily laughed at nonsense. At the latest with the exuberant sequel Magic Mike XXL, the franchise around the strip show deposits has become great enrichment in the cinema landscape developed.
This week Magic Mike – The Last Dance, the third and probably last film in the series, has been released in cinemas and once again it shows: director Steven Soderbergh and leading actor Channing Tatum offer eroticism and ecstasy at a level unmatched in contemporary cinema.
Watch the German trailer for the third Magic Mike film here:
Magic Mike’s Last Dance – Trailer (German) HD
The Magic Mike series inspires with a lot of variety
At the beginning of the third part, we learn that Mike Lane (Tatum) failed with a furniture business due to the corona pandemic and is now struggling as a bartender. The offer of the rich businesswoman Maxandra (Salma Hayek) finally brings him to London, where he works for a new theater show direct for the first time and assemble a group of new dancers should.
What sets the Magic Mike trilogy apart is the variety from part to part. The first film followed the classic rise and fall dramaturgy of gangster films, while Soderbergh also followed the Effects of the US financial crisis from 2007 to 2008.
Part 2 was then pure escapism without a moral finger. One A string of electrifying set pieces and impressively choreographed performances with the sole aim of making a predominantly female audience (on and in front of the screen) happy.
Magic Mike 3 also combines story variation with electrifying physicality
For Magic Mike – The Last Dance, Steven Soderbergh now has again undermined the visionary expectations. With the change of location to London, the previous sunny Florida setting is abandoned, while the old group from the first two parts only gets a mini appearance via video call.
Instead, the finale of the trilogy mixes RomCom items through the chemistry between Tatum and Hayek with the exciting approach that Maxandra has the upper hand due to her wealth and Mike can only assert himself with his charm and talent.
But what connects all three Magic Mike parts is this exuberant joy of playing and staging by stripping men. “There is nothing more erotic than a body in motion”tells the voice-over in Magic Mike 3. The series has skilfully reversed the well-known cinema images of erotic women and opened them up to the female gaze in order to celebrate stripping men as a sweat-inducing spectacle.
As Antidote to mainstream films that lack sex and, above all, eroticism of the present, the Magic Mike series is a gift that is already missing after the apparently last part.
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