If there ever was a film series which one could reasonably describe as being euphoric, I imagine few would argue with Magic Mike being a contender. Though recent in its nascence in popularity, especially with the release of the final installment of the series this year, Magic Mike is a series that has shined a spotlight on a rarity in populist cinema: female desire. The first in a trilogy of works, Magic Mike centers around the titular character, Mike Lane (Channing Tatum), who is a burgeoning entrepreneur working in several industries… including being a stripper at night. The film follows his life over one summer, and his working struggles. However, its modest beginnings before its expansion might lead you down a road of disappointment. 

Magic Mike begins as a film about gods among men. Its opening frame shows Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) with his arms outstretched, an Adonis-like figure amongst both the women in the crowd and the men backstage, who he keeps in his arsenal. What follows is a series of elaborately choreographed set-pieces —each bigger and more extraordinary than the last — of these strippers at work. There's an elegance in the beauty of watching each dance act in their unfiltered and untouched glory, placing emphasis on the movements of these dancers as they entertain the audience every night. It shines a light on the often under-seen industry of stripping in general, but also paints these strippers as real people, with real problems. Based on the real experiences Tatum had when he was a teenager, these scenes are shown with an awful lot of heart. They are albeit a little saccharine at times, but always genuine. 

The eponymous Magic Mike is riddled with financial struggles, finding difficulties in funding his custom furniture business which he would rather do instead of stripping for cash. Indeed, he is in this line of work not because he wants to, but because he needs to. This is a key underpinning of most of Soderbergh's recent output, and one that is the underbelly of the entire series. Magic Mike is a story beyond the wordless imagery of twerking and stripping, but a melodrama that finds itself sandwiched in between hedonism and pragmatism. Every character in Magic Mike is facing some variation of financial difficulty, and those who aren't are very explicitly spelled out in this medley of equal parts pure aestheticism and candid realism. The film makes reference to the quotidian struggles of living in dirt-poor poverty, where one fashions old furniture out of scraps found in the aftermath of a hurricane and gathers dollar bills in a safe with the promise of a better life. This is not merely a film about feminine desire, but rather a simmering examination at the inequities of capitalism.  

All this sounds good on paper, but in practice, it's difficult to tell whether or not Soderbergh and Carolin truly deliver on the promise of a maximalist comedy or an inside look into the economic struggles of adult entertainers. This is because they've unsuccessfully divvied two equally promising stories into one bland narrative. Most of the problems with this film stem from this film’s lack of focus. For instance, the stealth protagonist of the film, The Kid, (Alex Pettyfer) who emerges as a protégé of Mike's after he discovers Mike’s incompetence in roof-tiling (another one of his business ventures), has an entirely unnatural storyline that failed to captivate me in any way. Though The Kid is a shameless ripoff of the archetypal young hotshot that is overconfident in his abilities, Pettyfer is unsure of whether to give in to the character's insidious greed or to stick cowardly with a mawkish portrayal of amateurism and youthful naivety. Because of this indecision, it's difficult to find the real focal point of the story, as the story slowly moves away from Mike before moving back to him in the final act. And yet, despite his hefty screen-time, The Kid lacks a narrative arc. The only growth he gets is done without grace, as he is mercilessly tossed a generic subplot that flattens any potential dramatic tension nurtured in the first hour. Half-assed subplots like this combined with an undercooked romance between Brooke (Cody Horn) and Mike, which lacks any of the push/pull needed in convincing romances, makes this “realistic portrait” of the American Dream feel less like a meaningful illustration and more like a childish scrawl. 

Though Magic Mike shows promise in delivering on its raunchy subtext, its heavy-handed messaging muddles the final product, ultimately creating a weird hybrid of the two that limply underwhelms on both fronts. While Soderbergh has delivered several masterpieces, this film unfortunately misses the mark.

5/10