Review: Magic Mike

Dear friends, while I'd like to stay in your good regard by claiming that I saw this movie for science, or that I was taking one for the team, if I did I would be thoroughly lying. I put on my Woo Girl hat for the night (not an ACTUAL hat, just for the record. Though if it was an actual hat there'd be sparkles I'm sure) and headed on down to the cinema to be assaulted by the abdominals of several extremely attractive men for an hour and a half.

Fellas, you might want to skip this one, but ladies would do well to follow me below the cut for the low-down on Magic Mike and his band of merry men.

Okay, let's not beat around the bush here. This isn't a very good movie. It IS however, an incredibly entertaining movie (as long as you're in the target audience, but more on that later). The sets are impressive, the choreography doesn't get stale despite the fact 70% of the movie is just the removal of clothing, and perhaps most importantly, the movie doesn't let plot get in the way of the main drawcard. I'm pretty sure if you asked any woman leaving the cinema what the plot of the movie was, she'd have to think pretty hard about it, if she was able to answer you at all. She WOULD however be able to give you a blow-by-blow of the scene where True Blood's Joe Manganiello did a routine dressed as a fireman.

Hello sir

But okay, stripping aside, there was KIND OF a plot. Kind of. Our buddy Magic Mike (Channing Tatum)  is part of a troupe of strippers who want to FOLLOW THEIR DREAMS and GO BIG TIME and to achieve that they plan to take the show from where they're currently performing it in Tampa, Florida to the bright shiny lights of, er, Miami, Florida. Dream big, guys. Dream big. Somewhere in there, Mike meets 'The Kid' (Alex Pettyfer) who through a series of hilariously unfortunate events (liek, OMG, you wouldn't even read about it) ends up stripping on stage and the ladies love him and so he joins the team. And then there's some parties, and some of them take some drugs, and then their boss turns out to be kinda a douche, and then Mike gets a total boner for the Kid's sister, and then he leaves the squad and that's it. That's the whole movie right there. Boring right? NO. Because there's STRIPPING in between the tedious plot progression!

If I had to try and wrench some deeper meaning from the movie, it'd be as an exploration of the grey area you hit in your mid to late 20s, when the lifestyle choices you made as as a younger person start to become less sustainable as you age. It's not that you can't or don't want to keep going the way you are, it's more that society is going 'Ah...no. Time to grow up'. In that way it reminded me a lot of the later seasons of the TV drama Queer as Folk, but obviously not executed anywhere near as well.

Did I mention there was stripping?

To be perfectly and unashamedly honest, I really enjoyed it. It IS very much a chick flick (not that anyone in the world would have thought otherwise), and I can't think of any part of this film that would make it in any way enjoyable to a heterosexual male. Sure, there are SOME boobs, but the boobs/rock hard abs ratio is way in the favour of the abs. There are a few fantastically filthy gags, but I doubt even those plus boobs would redeem it.

This is a 'go out with the girls and giggle at cute boys' movie, nothing more. My usual yardstick after watching a movie is 'Would I buy that on DVD?' With this one, it's tough. Yes, I enjoyed it, and yes I would probably see it again, but I'd feel like a bit of a creep watching it by myself.

That said...Joe Manganiello, I like your stomach and you should call me.

I give Magic Mike 3 Woo Girl Hats out of 5.