Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’ on Max, Channing Tatum’s Disappointing Return to the Grind

The art of the dry hump gets one last WHUH with Magic Mike’s Last Dance (now on Max, in addition to streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), the third and allegedly final film in the MMCU, with Steven Soderbergh returning to direct after taking the second movie off. Star Channing Tatum is 42 now, a fact that makes me feel like I’m almost dead, and Tatum’s co-star this time is Salma Hayek, who never fails to finish the job of knocking me dead, and together, they emit a whole lotta hormones, hopefully with enough stoichiometric oomph to entertain (I just can’t bring myself to use the word “arouse” here) all of us who are watching and aren’t nearly as goddamn attractive as they are. The first two Mikes were pretty good in spite of themselves, so now we find out if the third time is also a charm, or if we’re just stuck with diminishing returns.

MAGIC MIKE’S LAST DANCE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The pandemic destroyed Mike’s (Tatum) furniture business and he no longer strip-dances so now he’s a bartender, but hey, at least he still works out 165 times a week. He’s mixing cocktails at a rich person’s fundraiser, and he’s recognized by one of the female patrons, but it takes a minute to place him, almost certainly because he’s wearing a shirt and pants this time. The rich person host is Maxandra Mendoza (Hayek), who pulls him aside after the party and lets on that she knows he was a master craftsman in the arts and crafts of taking off most of his clothes and jutting his crotch hither and thither. She could use a little somethin’, so maybe she can pay him for a dance? At first he’s like Clint in Unforgiven and is like, hey, I ain’t like that no more, but then she’s like ugh, it’s been the week from hell and then he’s like, hey, pay me $60,000 and she’s like how about $6,000 and he starts testing the shelves and furniture to see if this table is good for a gliding dry hump and if that bar will hold his weight when he does a pull-up and she does a pull-down of his pants. And all of that happens.

And then we see them the next morning, cuddling in bed, because this is a movie about simulation, not actual sex. So are they a thing or what? Dunno. It’s one of those “yeah-sure-maybe-not?” kind of thing-type things. It’s especially complicated when Max offers to pay Mike that $60k to come stay with her in London for a month. For what, he asks, and she’s like, it’s a surprise, and when they get there, she shows him the gorgeous theater that belongs to her ex, who’s she’s currently divorcing the living shit out of. Being performed at that theater is a stuffy period piece with people who are stiff in all the wrong ways, and she wants Mike to direct and choreograph a version of the play that makes people stiff in all the right ways. He agrees, reluctantly.

And so they hunt down the best dancing fellas in all of London and Mike teaches them to do their thing, but, you know, sexier. There’s a whole bit about making sure the performance and the theater pass whatever meticulous nitpickery the British government enforces upon such things, and the integration of the stuffy period piece actress (Juliette Motamed) into the show, and Mike’s speeches about making a lap dance hot as shit at the same time it’s about consent and stuff. Meanwhile, the state of Mike and Max’s romance is mooshy – they aren’t sleeping together and that backseat makeout session was a little weird. Are they putting on this show to rile up the snobs and bureaucrats and her ex-husband, or are they putting it on for each other? NO SPOILERS.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Hustlers > all the Magic Mikes.

Performance Worth Watching: We already know Tatum has mastered the grindy/buttwiggle/hubbahubba stuff, so we’re not surprised he’s still good at it, and Hayek is enjoyable but she doesn’t venture outside the realms of expectation either. So it’s worth noting that Motamed is a sparkplug in a couple of scenes, and you wish she had a couple more.  

Memorable Dialogue: Mike dictates the script on your next sitting-room throw pillow: “You boys gotta be ready to get your hands dirty, your noses wet and them nuts chafed as shit.”

Sex and Skin: Lots of underwear and thrusting of underwear areas, abs abs everywhere abs, a woman in skimpy skivvies, but no “nudity”!

Our Take: The opening Tatum/Hayek sexydance sequence warms the nethers quite nicely, the big-show finale has its share of sizzling moments and Soderbergh shows off his unmatched knack for crafting clever, spirited montages. (One sequence in which Mike’s dance squad attempts to “heist” the blessing of a stuffy bureaucrat is so slick, you can’t help but be charmed by it.) Soderbergh is still one of Hollywood’s most dextrous and stylish directors, ever dedicated to the pursuit of purely visual storytelling, yet maintaining his broad, accessible appeal. He’s so good, he even makes the unearthing of a musty Dandy Warhols track seem spirited, even inspired. He’s a wizard, that Soderbergh.

But Reid Carolin’s screenplay doesn’t give the filmmaker much grist for the mill. Structurally, it meanders from one sequence to the next, with a long, dead hour between the establishment and execution of the premise. It’s all sort of lumped together via voiceover narration from Max’s teenage daughter (Jemelia George), who waxes eloquent about the vitality of dance as an art form – the type of lite-intellectual assertions that we’re not going to disagree with, although it’s not going to inspire or provoke us very much either. Give it props for its audio-visual savoir-faire, but dramatically and emotionally, Magic Mike’s Last Dance isn’t much to get hot and bothered about. 

Our Call: Nobody in their right mind is gonna say the Magic Mike franchise is Important Cinema – the first two were smart and funny hangout movies, and surprised us by exceeding expectations. But Last Dance is even less consequential. Forgettable, even. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.