Magic Mike

The Film Fatales review Magic Mike and wonder whether it is worth shoving a dollar into a thong or should we just put a sock in it?

Magic Mike

A male stripper teaches a younger performer how to party, pick up women, and make easy money. [IMBD.] (elizabeth: I would like to add,  said stripper also saves Timmy’s dog from a well, goes on to become the president of the United States, and grants all strippers amnesty.)

2012. Rated R. 110 minutes. Starring Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Munn, Cody Horn, and Joe Manganiello. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. 

elizabeth: I rarely walk out of a movie praying to be kidnapped by aliens so they can zap the memory of a movie out of my brain. ET, if you are reading this, I am available any time after 10 AM on most weekdays. I have seen more than six naked men (okay, maybe not all at the same time…well, that is all I am going to say on that subject), but my initial feeling was that they all needed a bath and a better script. Cleanliness makes stripping so much more pleasant to watch.

More beef with that cake, madam?

Nicole: I wish we’d had seen this together so I could have seen you writhing in total discomfort. I saw this on a Monday night at 7:40pm. Where, pray tell, can you find a more incoherent, giggly gaggle of women? Answer: Nowhere, but at this showing of Magic Mike. I finally know what kind of movie gets droves of women off their asses and into the theatre. I don’t know whether to be dismayed, disgusted, and disoriented or proud? (It’s the former. Most definitely the former.) I will say this much for the movie: It is a truly authentic portrayal of what goes on inside those clubs. I won’t say how I know. Just that I know. ‘Nuff said. 

elizabeth: Got to give it to Matthew McConaughey’s character Dallas, the strip joint owner –  his body looked like it was slathered with left over butter from your local movie theatre. I felt dirty watching him and not in the good “dirty “way. Channing’s Mike appeared to be constipated during the whole movie and Joe Manganiello got me thinking that I should get HBO so I could see him on True Blood, but then he opened his mouth and I nixed going for the cable upgrade (although I am willing to give him a second chance if he wears that firemen’s outfit to my next birthday party). 

McConaughey hams it up.

But McConaughey was the best part of the movie, and I hated him and all he stood for. But that is okay because his sleaziness provoked an emotion out of me.  Can’t say that about the rest of them. B-O-R-I-N-G. And a quick note to the actors – please enunciate your words. Or, do it in French or Spanish. This way I might have thought it was an art film and would have been kinder in my review. Director Soderbergh should have stayed with just the stripping and fired the screenwriter. A storyline was not warranted. Don’t believe me – go see the movie.

Channing and company.

Nicole: I agree with you on all, save Tatum. Without him, I do believe this movie would have been excruciatingly unwatchable. I thought his comic deliveries were well-timed and on point, his dancing was a-maz-ing, and his character was endearing – given what he had to work with. It will forever remain a mystery to me why Soderbergh took this movie on. ANYONE could have directed this movie. So why Soderbergh saw it necessary to blemish his record with this one is beyond me.

elizabeth: I guess what I am thinking is that life is too short to spend time in the dark watching a movie such as Magic Mike. Women were just throwaways and I was offended by how they were just interchangeable and victims of date rape after a night of drugs and booze. Let’s try to elevate women in films a little more often. We are not your victims.  And showing your bum won’t make it all better.

Nicole: Agreed. And, no surprise that the lead actress (Cody Horn), who’s supposed to provide the film’s moral compass, is the CEO of Warner Brother’s daughter. Gee, I wonder how she got the part??? Suffice to say, she can’t act her way out of a wet paper bag and has one expression for every human emotion. [See image below as proof.]

elizabeth: Just watch the Magic Mike TV commercial. Save your money or send it to me.

The Film Fatales gives Magic Mike