Rosie Reviews: Magic Mike XXL.

Or, “Some Dudes With Muscles Dance To Some Music.”

I have not seen the first Magic Mike film. I know zero about what it’s all… about. Male strippers, that’s all I know. And all I know about male strippers is what I learned when I went to my older sister’s 21st on a stripper boat, an event which left me traumatised and with way to much baby oil on my hands.

So I went into this BLIND people. Blind and apprehensive. This is what I saw…

Okay so I can’t even believe how brilliant this is, but we open with the Channing guy staring pensively out to sea doing some serious The Bachelor-style beach thinking (Bachie starts soon, hurrah!). I assume he’s Magic Mike, but he has his clothes on, so I’m not sure.

I think this shot is meant to show us that Channing guy is contemplating his current lot in life. Also, WHY ISN’T ANYONE NAKED YET? Oh wait, here we go… Channing guy goes back to his workshop where he sexily builds things with his sexy hands. Then, with absolutely no explanation, Ginuwine’s ‘Pony’ starts playing and he pretends his welder is a giant electrical penis. This causes the woman in the cinema around me to scream and convulse. Then he dances a bit (but keeps his clothes on, which I find confusing). The audience continues screaming. I’m frightened. And worried about what will happen when someone actually is naked.

Woah, okay here we go: Channing guy goes to a pool party and the first thing we see is the naked butt of that dude who’s dating Sophia Vergara. I don’t know his name or his character’s name, so I shall henceforth refer to him as Sophia’s boyfriend. When Sophia’s boyfriend’s butt appears on screen, some of the women around me actually start to speak in tongues. I’ve never been to Hillsong, but I feel like this may be a similar experience.

Much ‘hurrah! We’re skinny dipping at a pool party! etc etc etc’ follows, then we meet what I’m assuming are all the dude strippers. And they’re all like, “Channing guy! Please come with us to a big male stripper show that will no doubt be the climax of this film!” And he’s all like, “Nah, I’m really happy just working in my workshop and staring out at the beach.” But then, SURPRISE! Just as they’re about to leave the next morning, Channing guy turns up and is all, “I was doing some beach thinking and dancing by myself and pretending to have an electric penis in my workshop is boring – I wanna come to this stripper thing!”

CUE ROAD TRIP. Lots of drugs/stripper hijinks/playfully punching each other in the arm. They stop at a gas station where Sophia’s boyfriend tries to charm the female cashier by dancing to the Backstreet Boys and pretending that a bottle of Mountain Dew is his penis. I’m starting to think that this movie is just random dancing and pretending that foreign objects are penises.

FIRST BIG HURDLE: They need to find an ‘MC’ to, like, narrate their stripper show or something. Apparently male stripper shows need narration. They go to Jada Pinkett Smith’s male stripper house, which is filled with lots of mumsy/dowdy/overweight/nerdy looking women (women just like us! etc) being entertained by very muscly men. Jada is all about making women feel special and wanted and sexually satisfied, which I like. Cue more stripper routines, and lots more screaming/fainting from women in the cinema. Donald Glover (or Troy from Community and my boyfriend forever so hands off) sings to a girl who has really low self-confidence and gives her self-confidence. Everyone is special etc etc etc. Oh, Jada agrees to be their MC. The only major problem in the movie has been solved!

They stop for a while at some random plantation house and Sophia’s boyfriend has hot sex with Andie McDowell, to prove that older ladies can score hot dudes too (as long as you’re, you know, one of the most beautiful and slightly older ladies in the world).

They finally get to the male stripper convention. Jada meets them there with Donald Glover and some other dude.

CUE MONTAGE!! They decide to come up with a WHOLE NEW ROUTINE like only a day before the convention! GASP! Will they be able to pull it off? Will everything go to plan? Will this movie end with them performing an incredible dance number like every other dance movie ever made?

Yes. Yes it will.

The movie ends with the stripper boys performing an incredible dance number like every other dance movie ever made. Except this dance number involves lots of clothes being pulled off and most of the women in the audience around you spontaneously orgasming. Every guy in the group gets his own special little solo, lots of women of different ages, ethnicities, shapes and sizes are singled out for sexy attention (although when Channing guy dances, he happens to pluck Amber Heard from the crowd – one of the most beautiful women in the world, but PRETTY GIRLS NEED ATTENTION TOO!)

The dance number ends. Cut to black. Everyone around me crying and screaming. I just feel incredibly ripped off that in an entire film about male strippers, I didn’t see one peen. WHERE WAS ALL THE PEEN?

But besides the lack of peen, I liked this crazy spontaneous-orgasm inducing movie. I liked that it tried to push the message that sexual pleasure should be just as much about women as men. I liked that it insisted that men should pay attention to what women want and need to feel valued. I liked that it included a diverse range of women in the stripper crowds (even though the women the hot strippers actually hooked up with were stunningly beautiful, but this is Hollywood after all – baby steps). I liked that even though it was a essentially a guy road-trip movie, it was clearly catered to a female audience. I liked that it didn’t apologise for the fact that women can be sexual creatures, and they can be totally unapologetic about it.

I guess it just depends what you find sexy, though. I was squirming in my seat more than I was salivating at the shiny muscles. But then, last week my boyfriend hooked up my Apple TV and I thought that was sexy as fuck, so maybe this wasn’t exactly my jam. Yeah. That’s what I need. Two hours of dudes who know how to fix my computer and like to stay in on Saturday nights watching Netflix. And who have a soft belly from eating too much pizza with me. Ohhhh baby. I’d take that over Sophia’s boyfriend’s bum any day.

But this was still good too. Muscly, intense, bizarro and good.

Get drunk and go see it. Just prepare to be this exhausted afterwards:

Are you planning on seeing the movie? Did you see the first one?

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