The movie is an excuse for Tatum, Soderbergh, and screenwriter Reed Carolyn (who wrote the previous two “Magic Mike” movies) to play around with great characters once more without repeating the same thing. After giving us before, basically “Saturday Night Fever with a stripper, a mentor student combined with a bad movie” (aka “Magic Mike”) and a “female empowerment fantasy and male bonding comedy masquerading as comedy Apocalypse Now and The Odyssey-referenced Road Movie (aka “Magic Mike XXL”) created something else entirely: a film about lust, monogamous love, creativity and freedom, but lightly so. There and never you roll your eyes. (Well, maybe a few times, mostly when characters repeat slogans about financial inequality simplified enough to fit on a bumper sticker.)
At the same time, this is one of Soderbergh’s antics and reference entertainment. It’s not as deliberately abrasive and silly as Soderbergh’s quasi-experimental comedy “Schizopolis,” nor is it “Ocean’s Twelve” (one of the franchises in which Julia Roberts plays both a regular character and “Julia Roberts”). It’s not as sensual flaunting as it is. But it’s a film about filmmaking, the artistic process, and all the different kinds of film and fiction it taps into, and it’s also about Mike and Max and the production of dance. is about the idea that stylish distractions still have substance, as can be seen in many projects. (“This show is not about getting a dick,” Max tells the art team, pausing for nanoseconds to add “only.”)
It wouldn’t work if Tatum wasn’t a movie star around the corner, but perhaps the last American-born A-list movie actor who could really, really dance and get the occasional opportunity to prove it. Although most of their tangos are emotional and intelligent, the film honors her ferocious energy and focus, allowing her to be in the limelight frequently. .
No one would write a dissertation on the intricate structure of this film’s storytelling. Like the other two films, it goes where it feels like it needs or wants to go, but in different ways. It all led to a big show (a different kind of cinematic cliché), and when the curtain finally came up, it revealed a cabaret-esque production that was essentially the same one Tatum co-created, and now It’s been a big hit in London, complete with audiences. Participation — The film finds a clever way to connect what’s happening onstage with what’s going on inside Mike and Max.
