![]() ![]() To make excuses for their absence, the story Tarzan (Kevin Nash) tells Mike (Channing Tatum) to get him back into the clutches of his fellow “male entertainers” is that Dallas (McConaughey) has died, only to reveal the truth to them when he arrives at the “wake”: Dallas took The Kid (Pettyfer) with him to start an act in Macau, China. And, just as other sequels, key cast members from the first one are missing–in this case, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer and Cody Horn. Of course, Magic Mike XXL isn’t the first offending sequel to be inane, but rather, continues a long tradition of unnecessary additions to an original movie (see: Blues Brothers 2000, Mannequin 2 and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps). Nonetheless, the utter frivolity of the plot can’t be ignored. Gregory Jacobs, Steven Soderbergh’s longtime right hand producer, stepped up to the plate to take the director’s chair (in spite of Soderbergh’s retirement from film, he showed enough respect for the film to edit and serve as director of photography) and, indeed, did a spot-on job of imitating the style and tone of the original. 10/10.When considering the near perfection of 2012’s Magic Mike (one of the last films Steven Soderbergh would direct), it should be no surprise that the studio, Warner Bros., would want to make a sequel so as to garner more money and destroy the memory of the original. It’s gay and any queer will agree with me. This is the queerest of Channing’s films, and I have to reiterate that the way that he says: “I thought I’d lost you,’ is an absolute choice, and everything about The Eagle is gay. They work together! They trust each other! They never betray each other! They give up parts of themselves to support the other! They wrestle around on the ground and it’s very! Sexually! Charged!! There’s also a moment in the film where Marcus looks up at Esca and says, in straight-up, a voice that is the epitome of queer longing and desperation, “I thought I’d lost you,” and that line is really everything. There are longing glances, moments of companionship, and points when they anticipate each other’s needs, moods, and even actions. 8/10Ī couple remarks to convince you - the relationship between Marcus and Esca is so homoerotic that it’s impossible to ignore, there is no straight romance whatsoever in the film for either character, and there is a shameless display of bodies at the very beginning of both character’s introductions. It hits you hard, it makes you hurt and ache and wonder why on earth would anyone be that vulnerable during a performance? While being objectified? It hurts! There’s a longing and a strange desire between Mike and the Kid and I know, I Just Know, that Channing wrote it and played it as a love story On Purpose! It’s gay! It’s queer, this whole movie is just queer male intimacy and everyone needs to TAKE NOTES! However, sadly, there is a Straight Romance and we cannot fully lean into the queer. ![]() It lures you in with mostly-naked men doing choreographed stripping routines, and then it HITS YOU WITH FEELINGS. It’s about loving your friends, and being loved, betrayed, and hurt by them. It’s about being open with your friends in both absurdly sexualized theater experiences, and while separate from that experience. ![]() What makes it gay though, besides the absurdly sculpted bodies and the fact that it was co-written by a bisexual man (Channing Tatum!) about his life experiences after high school, is that this movie is about queerplatonic intimacy. Look we all know Magic Mike is meant to appeal to any person of any gender who is attracted to men. ![]()
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