Magic Mike XXL does not only achieve the unlikely feat of being a great sequel, it somehow manages to be one of the best films of the year.
Magic Mike follows the conventions of the ‘putting on a show’ musical, whereby the old band are brought back together (sans previous cast members who were presumably too expensive) to put on one final show.
But despite following a format that allows for extravagant musical numbers, Magic Mike XXL is perhaps the most honest, believable, and realistic film to come out of Hollywood this year.
Magic Mike XXL is a film about doing something you love with people you love, and the heart of the film is the intercharacter relationships. Outside of the tightly choreographed dancing scenes, the film appears largely ad-libbed, which results in believable dialogue and characterisation. Dialogue overlaps and and feels genuine, with Channing Tatum in particular showing off a naturalistic acting style that endears the audience to him as both a character and actor.
At times scenes can be slow and awkward, but only as slow and awkward as real human conversation. Like great art often is, Magic Mike XXL is constantly on the precipice of collapse but never oversteps the mark, consistently holding together in a masterful display.
In juxtaposition to it’s realism, Magic Mike XXL is peppered with strip-dance scenes which stray into the realms of fantasy. But these are pulled back into reality via diegetic (in scene) music, whether it’s a gas station playing Backstreet Boys in one of the films most pleasing scenes, or Channing Tatum finding his groove to a Spotify playlist of classic hip hop.
Magic Mike XXL is ultimately a film that provides escapism. But it wonderfully does it on three (yes, three!) different levels: Escapism for the characters, who pause their mundane or failed personal lives in favour of a wild road trip and extravagant fantasy performance; escapism for the women who attend the strip shows – the main goal of our heroic ‘male entertainers’ is to make undervalued women smile; and escapism for the cinema audience, who witness believably flawed men putting on an elaborate show and dance in the scale of the great Hollywood musicals.
Magic Mike XXL says that even if your life seems crap, there’s always something out there that will bring you joy.
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