Channing Tatum is proving to be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to producing movies: after successfully making tons of money off of 22 Jump Street, he’s decided to make a sequel to the movie that will most likely be engraved on his tombstone. I didn’t catch this movie’s prequel and since it came out the same week as Ant-Man, I was prepared to skip it altogether.

However, when a couple of girlfriends and I found the need to kill a couple of hours in Makati, we decided to catch a screening of the biggest film that Steven Soderbergh (of the Ocean’s trilogy fame)’s first assistant director Gregory Jacobs (Wind Chill) helmed, Magic Mike XXL.  Here’s the round-up:

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

Feeling disenchanted at how his life’s turning out – working like a horse to make ends meet, left without a girlfriend, and dealing with the general monotony of being a furniture man – Mike (Channing Tatum – 22 Jump Street) finds himself questioning if leaving the stripping business was the right thing to do. When he receives a call from the gang – Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello – True Blood), Tarzan (Kevin Nash – John Wick), Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias – The Nut Job), Ken (Matt Bomer – In Time) and Tito (Adam Rodriguez – CSI: Miami) – inviting him for a cross-country drive to attend and perform one last time in a stripper convention in Myrtle Beach South Carolina, he quickly says yes. When a drug-related car accident lands Tobias in the hospital, the group is left without an emcee. Mike urges the group to make a quick detour to a club owned by Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith – The Matrix Reloaded), a woman he used to work (strip) for, to ask for her help. The road trip to the convention proves to be fruitful, as not only do the guys resolve their underlying issues with each other, they also come to grips to what comes next in their lives. Also along the way, Mike meets and befriends a fellow disillusioned photographer Zoe (Amber Heard – 3 Days to Kill), whose quick wit makes an impression.

THE GOOD:

1. Joe Manganiello’s sexy dance number to a Backstreet Boys’ song. Why did no one tell me that there was a BSB dance number??? I would’ve seen this before Ant-Man had I known! And can I just say that Joe Manganiello was such a revelation to me in this movie? I only know of him from True Blood and I’ve always thought him to be too frakkin’ serious. Now I see why he and Sofia Vergara get along so well.

   

2. Channing Tatum’s dance moves were just crazy. Damn. Damn. Daaaaamn. They weren’t overtly sexual but hot damn, that boy can really dance. One my favorite things about the movie were Amber Heard’s facial reactions during the final dance sequence where Channing Tatum was grinding his junk on her face. She really looked surprised (and very much kilig) at all the shit that was happening, LOL.

   

3. Matt Bomer is super pretty. Like, super, super pretty.

   

4. The scene where Donald Glover rapped. That was probably the hottest scene in the movie for me, weirdly enough.
5. The romance was just a hint, not a full blown slap to the face. Again, I didn’t see the first film, but from what my friends say, they first film was a bit too heavy-handed with the romance. It wasn’t like that in here at all.

   

6. That the movie had no real reason to exist, other than to show a bunch of dudes going on a road trip. I’d usually hate films that have no real reason to exist, but since the director (and his cinematographer, Soderbergh) is no newbie to creating brotherly love onscreen, this was very palatable to me. Very reminiscent of those movies from the 90’s that were neither good nor bad, but you get weirdly attached to anyway.

   

THE BAD:

1. Matt Bomer’s dance moves. The boy is super pretty and can sing well but his dancing skills leave much to be desired.
2. Too little Andie MacDowell. She is such a gem and I would’ve loved to have had seen her in any of the Convention scenes.

   

3. Speaking of Andie MacDowell, that stupid Cinderella joke. Mostly because I didn’t get it and it had be explained to me by my friend.
4. The way the women were throwing crumpled dollar bills to the men. Is that how it really goes? They were almost like animals, which was a bit sad.

THE UGLY:

1. The final shot of them all looking up at the fireworks show was such a rip off of the final scene in Ocean’s Eleven, where Danny and the gang were staring wistfully at the huge fountain in Vegas. I didn’t know that Soderbergh was part of this movie when I sat down to see it and even then I thought that that shot was weirdly familiar. Now, it just seems like it’s his go-to shot when finishing a film.

   

All in all, Magic Mike XXL was a surprisingly entertaining movie, although that might’ve been just mostly because of the BSB dance sequence. Dance numbers were plentiful (at least in my book) and the sequences in the finale truly were worth waiting for. Performances were at par with what you would expect from a movie like this but the chemistry between the actors is something that you don’t see often these days. Again, this movie definitely had no real reason to be made but it was made with such a light and fun touch that it’s hard to begrudge it its existence.

THE VERDICT: 7.5/10

*All photos are lifted from the Magic Mike XXL’s IMDB page.