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The third time’s a disappointment with Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the conclusion of Channing Tatum’s adventures as a lovable Floridian stripper. The first Magic Mike, directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Sex Lies and Videotape), was a lot of fun, but got bogged down with an overly-serious drug plot. The first sequel, Magic Mike XXL, is a remarkably joyous, highly underrated road trip party movie that escapes what Soderbergh has called ‘the tyranny of narrative’ in ways worthy of academic study (I shit you not). Soberbergh lensed the sequel, but Gregory Jacobs directed it. Now Soderbergh returns to the directing chair to conclude the trilogy… with a whimper.
As Last Dance opens, Mike is bartending parties and events after COVID wiped out his custom furniture business. He meets a wealthy socialite named Max (Salma Hayek) who offers him a few grand to give her one of his famous dances. He ends up spending the night with Max, and the two kinda sorta maybe start falling in love. She takes Mike to London to direct a theatrical strip-tease experience in a historic theater she owns, but her soon-to-be ex-husband and the community put up as many obstacles as possible to keep the ‘low-brow’ production from opening. And that’s the improbable, lackluster premise of Magic Mike’s Last Dance, which ends in the big show being a success and our main characters solidifying their relationship. Of course.
The movie has its share of fun, even if most of it feels like warmed-up left-overs. The script doesn’t completely stifle Channing Tatum’s charisma. He does his best to carry the piece over the threshold, and his charm goes a long, long way. Max’s adopted daughter (Jemelia George) and man-servant (Ayub Khan Din) are memorable characters who help Mike handle the emotionally volatile Max’s high highs and low lows. The strip-dancing, unfortunately, never approaches the dazzle or delights of the first two films. But perhaps the biggest burden this movie has to bear is the character of Max. As lovely and wonderful as Salma Hayek usually is, she can’t turn water into wine. Her character is insufferable here. It was a major miscalculation on the part of Soderbergh and screenwriter Reid Carolyn to think audiences would enjoy a rich, out-of-touch, hot-head who’s a terrible parent, a terrible business person, and someone who wields her undeserved power in reckless, condescending ways. No one wants Magic Mike to fall in love with this monster. We want him to escape this character — and this mediocre movie.