Magic Mike

Year: 2012

Grade: C-

Country: USA

Director: Soderbergh

Review

more than anything else, this film made me want to watch boogie nights again. it’s a similar kind of story about a young man growing up in an adult sex industry. of course, boogie nights is superior in every possible way. it has a better look, soundtrack, cast, direction, screenplay…the characters are more deep (and there are more of them) in the first 30 minutes than in the entire 1hr 45min of this film.

this is the second straight soderbergh film that i entered without remembering that it was soderbergh. the guy is a chameleon. the more i thought about this film the less i liked it. there are so many places where they went wrong. we hear that the protagonist wants to be a furniture maker, but we never see him refining his craft. he says to his girl to be that he’s not magic mike in real life, but all we ever see is him partying with girls and stripping. one time he goes to the bank to get a loan, that’s it. in 6 years he’s saved $13k which doesn’t seem like that much, especially when you see the truck he’s driving and the house he lives in and the other truck he has for his auto detailing gig (another thing we never see him do). don’t tell me how good this guy is, show me. then again, i’m not the target audience. i didn’t fall in love with his smile and blue eyes and dancing, so i actually looked at his character critically.

Watched in theater