Magic Mike (2012)
I can officially say I've seen every Steven Soderbergh movie. With a career that started in 1989 and has continued into 2019, I have seen a whopping 31 movies directed by Steven Sodebergh. In hindsight, I would have skipped a few. I'm thinking specifically of the Spalding Gray movies, which were not his worst work by any means, but just seemed singularly for Spalding Gray fans and weren't really Soderbergh movies.
He has a completed movie and one in pre-production so it will not be long before I can't say I've seen every movie. Although one of those movies appears to be a Meryl Streep movie and the other features Jon Hamm, so I will probably watch both of those movies too. What's two more movies when you've seen 31 already?
Onto the movie of the day, I am eight years behind the zeitgeist on this one. I don't think I avoided this movie for any particular reason. I probably didn't even know Steven Soderbergh directed it so I didn't really have a reason to watch it. It got solid reviews, but not the type of reviews to make me go see a movie I'm not particularly interested in.
This is the type of movie that is not quite what it seems like it is while at the same time surely not disappointing anyone who thinks it's that type of movie. Which is probably why it made a ton of money! If you're there to see Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey strip and put on a show, well it certainly gives the audience what it wants.
This is actually pretty unusually structured movie. It is, on the surface, something of a romantic comedy while not having the tone of a romantic comedy at all. It's not clear there's even a true romance until the end in fact. Yeah they flirt and have some chemistry, but right when a normal romantic comedy would address their relationship, they address the fall of the young stripper instead.
The least compelling aspect of this movie is probably the young stripper, Adam, played by Alex Pettyfer. It's pretty standard young guys gets in over his head, resorts to drugs, has downfall. It's not the main part of the movie, and the turn to drugs moment is a lot more casual than most of these movies are to the point where I didn't even realize I was getting that story until, again, the end.
That's basically the movie. It follows the two normal plots that this kind of movie will typically follow, but it's not totally clear that's where it's headed. I thought the movie was just going to leave the Mike and Brooke flirtation as just that: a flirtation. And I didn't necessarily think the movie was going to emphasize the downfall as Adam as much because he quickly becomes not the point of view character.
Magic Mike, as I'm sure most of those reading this know, was created thanks to Tatum's experiences as an 18-year-old stripper. Oddly enough, the least compelling part of the movie is probably the most like Tatum was at the time. Tatum, in other words, is not playing his younger self, but I assume a wholly created fictional character.
The appeal of this movie appears to be to see a heretofore unseen subculture of life: the male stripper. It feels reasonably authentic in its depiction of what it's like to be a male stripper. You get a sense of what it was like for Tatum to be a stripper, which is I imagine why he wanted this to be a movie.
One thing I was extremely distracted by was the movie's complete ignorance of what I imagine the clientele of a male strip club would be. Again, I'm assuming and that may make me an asshole, but I think a minority of the attendees would be 20-something, beautiful women. There would be 1) a lot of middle-aged women I think 2) gay guys 3) 20-something women who aren't models. And yet you'd think if you became a stripper, everyone who you got to dance for would be a 10. I know, I know it's a movie, but it's the one thing that ruins the authentic seeming subculture.
It was solid. I kind of expected to like it more? I ended with Magic Mike to end with a popular movie, but I had some semblance that it would be great and it's merely fine.
2.5/4 stars
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