About.com Rating

A fun, big, loopy and largely plot-free sequel, Magic Mike XXL takes Steven Soderbergh's 2012 Magic Mike and turns what was a fun, smart performance showcase for Channing Tatum with some surprisingly tough stuff about working in America into a fun, smart performance showcase for Channing Tatum. This sequel may be XXL, according to the title, but it's mostly just puffed-up -- a Macy's Thanksgiving-Parade Balloon version of the original that's bigger, brighter-colored and meant to make you smile that not coincidentally ditched all the ballast that gave the first film the very real  weight and meaning it had.

Directed by Soderbergh associate Gregory Jacobs (and with the 'retired-from-directing' Soderbergh shooting the film and editing it under two of his more regular pseudonyms), Magic Mike XXL is still miles smarter, sexier and more fun than most Hollywood comedies; it's as if if the people who greenlit (accent on the word green) it are more interested in the Fisher-Price version of the original film than they are in recreating the desperation, animosity and stress that came between the fun, sexy-time dances in the first. Which is fine, and profitable, and certainly an okay option for your moviegoing dollar, but while it's even easier to laugh this time around, it's also harder to care. Screenwriter Reid Carolin returns, but he also has to be in on the softening and limpness -- sorry -- of this film compared to the first one. And while Matthew McConaughey doesn't return, neither does Alex Pettyfer -- a walking singularity of anti-charisma who sucks the fun out of any film he's in, the slightly hunkier-but-suckier Aaron Taylor-Johnson -- so I'll call that more than even.

The film starts with the title character, Mike (Channing Tatum) out of the "male entertainers" game, designing and selling his own furniture; after one afternoon in the company of his old co-strippers and his signature song "Pony" coming up on Spotify as he works into the night later on, Mike turns his garage workshop into a twerkshop, dancing with joy for the first time in a long time. His old confederates Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez) and Ritchie (Joe Manganiello, who is quietly and secretly the glue that holds the film together in many ways) are going to make one last ride to the Male Entertainer's convention in Myrtle Beach before hanging up their thongs and calling it a day; Mike, for old time's sake and the joy of it all, decides to join them.

And that, as they say, is that; unburdened by plot, the guys ride up the Eastern Seaboard stopping for parties and impromptu work opportunities and other social occasions, depending on either the kindness of strangers (Andie MacDowell, Donald Glover) or on old friends who are still nonetheless mighty strange (Jada-Pinkett Smith, Elizabeth Banks). Much of the film's strength is based on the assumption you will enjoy these charming people being charming, and that assumption is hardly unwarranted. And there are great jokes and moments, even when they don't add up to more: The fact that "Macau" and "Macaw" are the same thing to some of our characters, a quick-cut look at all the differently-costumed performers at the convention getting ready to do the same thing, even Pinkett-Smith's eloquent libertine and entrepreneur of the erotic.It's wish-fulfillment and fun on the same scale as Entourage, only in a way that accepts, elevates and appreciates women as sexual, healthy whole human beings and not as walk-on breasts attached to nagging mouths. 

Tatum, with his loose-limbed physicality, expansive frame and sly sense of humor, is still the biggest draw here; the first film was based on his own experiences, and he has a natural capacity for embracing the surreal excess of the game. And let it also be said that 'game' is the right word here; it's hard to imagine a gender-reversed version of Magic Mike or Magic Mike XXL  specifically because of the creep-and-ick factor, but change dour-looking men throwing money at women to happy-looking women throwing money at men, and you've got a box-office smash. Let's just say this: During the dancing sequences, I couldn't help but notice all the shots of women hurling dollar bills at our heroes but also observed that there were no corresponding shots of someone, anyone, picking it up. In Soderbergh's first film, the money is what matters, while here it's just a expected prop, a token of affection -- which is why the first film is better than the second movie.

Still, it's hard to resist a film with performers as charming as this one, from Bomer's work as new-age stud Ken to Manganiello's secretly strong performance as big-hearted, large-organed Ritchie. Magic Mike showed you a world where it was raining men, but also showed you the gutter where they wound up after the storm; Magic Mike XXL is a movie about a group of people in their last week of employment that still ends with hugs, smiles and DJ Khaled's "All I Do is Win" on the soundtrack. Beautifully shot, charmingly winning and full of laughs, Magic Mike XXL  is plenty of fun, but it ruins its own chances of being anything more than that.

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