February Blind Spot Review: Magic Mike (2012)

“You are the husband they never had! You are that dreamboat guy that never came along!”
– Dallas

SYNOPSIS: A male stripper teaches a younger performer how to party, pick up women, and make easy money. – via IMDB

Not even remotely my cup of tea (though it seems I am very much in the minority with this), but this is specially for my bestie, even though she made me watch this, and even though this drives her to contemplate whether it would be worth burning her house down or not:

Alrighty, so this was a selection that made my list because, when I sent my final few Blind Spot possibilities, Natasha absolutely jumped on this one. I was unsure as to whether this was because it was crap, because there was a lot of flesh all over for perviness, because the plot was so non-existent I might murder my TV, if she just wanted to hear my bitch session live, or because again, more flesh. So anyway, back to Magic Mike. The movie was… okay. Actually, it was significantly better than I thought it would be, what with all the negative feedback on it, but it is still a far cry from a masterpiece. It was shot very well and had music, while not my favourite, that was well suited for the film. The cast came with relatively impressive names attached to it, but they were criminally underused. I am looking specifically here at Matt Bomer and Matthew McConaughey. I expected more from them. It would have been nice. On the flesh front, however, there was a lot (and by this I mean extremely little clothing) going on. The movie successfully managed to never cross over into tacky territory, which was good – nice job, Soderbergh – but covered up the lack of story by stripping and dancing its way through everything. Magic Mike is a great watch for a girls night: few cuties, lots of flesh, every girl’s secret fantasy to be dominated and plucked out of chairs and just carried off like that thrown up on screen, you get it all – but again, absolutely no story. Ticks all the boxes. However, I must admit, while I might have enjoyed certain, erm, aspects of the film, I don’t know how much the male appreciation for this will be. Again, I didn’t think the story was particularly amazing or anything like that, but it was enough to string it all together (even if done so weakly). The ladies didn’t really need that much to sell this to them, but I just wonder how the male demographic feels about it? I really enjoy Channing Tatum, for comedy and for drama (though apparently not many agree with me on the latter), and I liked seeing him here. I thought he worked well with Alex Pettyfer here, they shared pretty good chemistry. Cody Horn seemed like such a bitchy and flat character, though, which was a real pity, and as an actress she was also underwhelming. Also, I am going to take a moment here to mention that I thought she had the world’s most annoying laugh. The movie knows it is a fluff piece, which also works for it, it doesn’t try to be some revolutionary drama film or anything, and has fun with what it is doing. I can think of plenty superior movies to watch, but I can also think of many more that are an utter waste of time. This was alright… although I honestly think if the stripping was taken out it would be a very dull affair indeed.