Magic Mike’s Last Dance Review

Michael “Magic Mike” Lane returns for a third entry in the Magic Mike series. Magic Mike’s Last Dance sees the titular character travel to another continent.

Due to the pandemic, Mike’s (Channing Tatum) furniture business was forced to close and he resorts to bar work. When bartending for a charity event, Mike meets Maxandra “Max” Mendoza (Salma Hayek Pipault), a wealthy socialite and she gives the former stripper a remarkable offer. She offers Mike $60,000 to travel to London for six weeks and direct a risqué show for the West End.

When it comes to films spawning a franchise, Magic Mike would probably not be the first to come to mind. And it has come a long way since the humble days of the first Magic Mike film. The 2012 original was a grounded film that looked at the effects of the Long Recession on a lost generation of young men. Mike was trapped in a cycle of stripping and causal labour as he saved up to set up his business.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance did start like it was going to be a continuation of this theme. The film opens with the reveal that Mike lost his small business and at the age of 40 he had to start again. This theme disappeared quickly when Mike gets offered $6,000 to perform a seductive dance for an attractive older lady. He gets whisked off to London on a whim and stays in Max’s townhouse. The series went from gritty to fantasy.

The film did attempt to give itself more meaning than it really had. This was done through the voiceover where Max’s daughter, Zadie (Jemelia George), occasionally spoke about the origins and meaning of dance as an art form and as a way to communicate. This attempt at elevating the materials falls flat.

As the film series processed, it has moved far beyond its origins. The first film was about the lives of male strippers. The second film had a road movie that showed the characters going on a road trip to a stripping convention. Magic Mike’s Last Dance was essentially a standalone film since Mike’s stripper colleagues only have cameos. Mike was in a new location and surrounded by new characters. In this film Mike gets surrounded by wealth and luxury: far from the setting of the first two films. Magic Mike’s Last Dance did try tying back to the original film because Mike meets one of his ex-clients and she talks about her encounter as a great experience. However, the threequel seems to ignore that this encounter ended with Kim (Caitlin Gerard) taking an ecstasy pill and ends with Mike and Adam getting into a fight with a group of college kids.

The first film was considered a bit risqué since the strippers did actually live up to the job description. They were dressed in sexy outfits and stripped down to their throngs. The dancing in Magic Mike’s Last Dance was more in PG-13 territory. The interchangeable dancers were athletic men in their 20s and the most they did was dance topless. It made the film feel more like a Step-Up because the dancing was so well choreographed. This Step-Up comparison felt apt when the dancers had to win over a sex-starved bureaucrat by doing a dance routine on a double-decker bus.

All three films did have a theme of aging. In the first film Mike was considered at the twilight of his stripping career at the age of 30, whilst the second film was meant to be a final hooray for the strippers. In Magic Mike’s Last Dance Mike was given chance to have another final go into the stripping world, moving to a behind-the-scenes role. The aging role also extends to the relationship with Mike’s love interest who was older than him with a teenage daughter. Max was a woman looking for a lease of life after being trapped in a loveless marriage.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance did do some things better than the previous film, Magic Mike XXL. Magic Mike XXL was a meandering road trip where Mike and his colleagues travel to a stripping convention. Magic Mike’s Last Dance felt like it had some tension since Mike and Max were trying to create a show and had to face obstacles contrived by Max’s husband. It was a simple goal, but it was something.  There was the question of what Max’s intentions were since she invited a stranger into her home.

Max was a fun character. She wanted to make the strip show as a way to annoy her husband. She had a force of personality that was entertaining to watch, especially when she closed the show. It was particularly remarkable since Hayek Pipault was a last-minute replacement for Thandiwe Newton.

Juliette Motamed’s Hannah was the funniest character in the film. She was a brash Londoner and actress who was happy no longer having to star in a stuffy period drama. It was particularly notable when she got to make lewd comments about the character she played in the play.

On a final note, I found it funny that the older English characters had old-fashioned names like Edna and Roger. It seemed like the writer thought of the most unfashionable names possible for these characters.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance was a light and inconsequential film. Tatum and Hayek Pipault had solid chemistry and could be considered as a Step-Up movie for an older audience. But it was an overly light and trivial film that will leave little impact.