Review of MAGIC MIKE'S LAST DANCE: Gyrating for Gain

February 13, 2023

Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) has retired from the male stripper business and was now working as a bartender. He was recommended to lonely separated multi-millionaire Maxandra "Max" Mendoza (Selma Hayek) for a private meeting. After experiencing a mind-blowing lap dance from Mike that ended in a romp in the sheets, Max offered him $60,000 to go with her to London for a mysterious mission she had in mind. 

In London, Max revealed that she was now the owner of a vintage theater called the Ratigan, which was now playing a misogynistic play entitled "Isabel Ascendant," where the pregnant female lead had to choose between two men she did not fancy. Max instead wanted to make her own feminist version of the play featuring talented male dancers to play strippers, to be choreographed and directed by Mike Lane himself. 

This was the third installment of an unlikely trilogy which spun off from a film about male strippers called "Magic Mike" (Steven Soderberg, 2012), which turned out to be a big cult success. There was a sequel called "Magic Mike XXL" (Gregory Jacobs, 2015) which was also a box-office hit. So they thought of doing another sequel 8 years later with Soderberg back to direct, and only Channing Tatum left dancing from the original cast.  

More than 10 years after the original film, the athletic Tatum can still grind with the best of them, albeit bordering on cringy. Mike's story with Max was too over-the-top, quite unlike the down-to-earth tone of the first two films. Hayek's Max was too bossy and unpredictable to be likable. Tatum and Hayek had chemistry brewing in their first lap dance, but nothing much after that. Mike even danced with another girl for the wet and wild climactic number. 

We only see cameos of Mike's gang (Matt Bomer, Joe Magnaniello, Kevin Nash and Adam Rodriguez) during a short Zoom call. There were 10 talented new male dancers with ripped torsos, but we do not know anything about them. The second act about the show rehearsals sagged in momentum (save for that fun dance on the bus for bureaucrat Edna). The highlight was the well-executed full show in the final half hour, but the ending did not stick. 5/10.