Chaos Attraction

Magic Mike Review--The Full Monty

2012-07-01, 9:40 a.m.

Magic Mike:

First, let me draw you a picture of the audience for this movie: The theater was 3/4 full, and I saw three husbands and two (probably) gay guys. Everyone else was women. I saw grandmas. I saw one family of three generations of women in there. This is definitely A Film For The Ladies rather than the gay guys. So for those of you wondering who the audience for this film is, now you know.

The movie goes back and forth between obviously being made as a movie in which women of the future will be watching it at home and playing drinking games (I dearly wished I'd had booze on me in the theater while watching it--missed opportunity) for the lulz, and yet being Very Serious about Magic Mike and his career goals. This led to a woman saying as we left the theater, "I wish there was less movie and more stripping." Amen to that.

The movie doesn't even start out with an introductory credits bit or anything. It just starts abruptly with (Magic) Mike waking up naked, showing us all his ass--to the oohs of the audience-- after having a threesome with a fuckbuddy named Joanne and a third girl that neither of them even remember the name of. The argument they have over this is kind of amusing. Then Mike gets dressed and wants to take off, leaving Joanna to be all, "You're leaving two strange girls in the house and you're what, not worried about us stealing your stuff?" He's all, "Uh...then don't steal my stuff." Yeah, I think this movie is not gonna win awards for the writing.

The movie also feels compelled to tell us what month it is by stamping the words "JUNE," "JULY," and "AUGUST" across the screen in giant effing all-caps periodically. It's even more fun than READING ALL CAPS ON THE INTERNET!

So, Mike (played by Channing Tatum, a man with an awesome bod and generic face and well, mediocre acting) is a 30-year-old entrepreneur with multiple jobs:
(a) he does roofing
(b) he has an auto detailing business
(c) he strips/does some management stuff at his strip club, Xquisite,
but what he REALLY wants to do is, (d) make custom furniture.

For the record: we see Mike working at roofing for one day. We see that he has a specially decorated car for the auto detailing business (though we never see him use that car or work at it). And obviously, we see a lot of stripping. We even see Mike wearing glasses and counting club money at one point on the management thing.. But the custom furniture? We never, ever see him making any of that. Mostly we just see him mentioning it, and at one point he's all, "Are these (designer's name) chairs? Oh, they're a ripoff...that's cool, then." Anyhoo, it's kind of odd for a movie that wants to take Mike's life dreams seriously that we don't like, see him making furniture. And really, if the man has four jobs, when does he have the time? Okay, so three of the four are probably daylight hour employment, but between the stripping and the partying after the stripping and the whopping hangovers the man must wake up with, when does he find the time for day jobs? I also want to mention that Mike is the sort of dude who refuses to take the plastic off of the inside of his car so it will still look like new. Uh...okay.

On the one day we see Mike at a day job, he picks up a stray kid, Adam, who we'll almost always hear referred to as "The Kid." He is basically a Tim Riggins sort of guy--was a football stud in high school, bombed out of college for being a dumbass, and now is at loose ends and is a total loser shacking up at his sister's. His sister, Brooke, is the lone straight man in the movie and spends most of it with a giant "what the fuck, seriously?" expression on her face. After finding out that young Adam already got his butt canned on day one from roofing-- and he refuses to wear a fuckin' tie at work-- she suggests that he come along as a third wheel on her boring date with a boring guy who works for Medicare and goes on about policies all night. So Adam can ask him about getting a job in marketing. Right, like Mr. "Not Gonna Wear A Fuckin' Tie" (except when stripping to "It's Raining Men," anyway) is gonna do that. Adam actually walks out on the date in sheer boredom, finds Mike standing around in front of a club, and talks Mike into getting him into the club despite his being 19. Mike gets him to wheedle some 21-year-olds into going to Xquisite and then gets Adam the job of running the props for the Xquisite show.

Adam is a young, dumb idiot for the most part. He is played by Alex Pettyfer, who in real life is also known for being a douchetastic idiot. So, perfect casting there.

We meet the rest of the stripper dudes, who are:
(a) Dallas, the club owner, emcee, and part-time performer played by Matthew McConaghey. Dear lord, the man has taken care of his body, 'cause he shows it often. He is basically the human equivalent of a snake, and wears an ugly-ass snake necklace at all times so you don't forget. When asked if Dallas is a good guy, Mike's answer to this is "He's....Dallas." Right-o. He is here for the lulz, man. Dallas plans on taking the club to Miami (they're in Tampa) and raking in the BIG BUCKS. Mike is his "favorite," which doesn't really mean much.
(b) Big Dick Richie, played by That Dude From True Blood. We get to see him using a penis pump in one of the most amusingly framed shots ever, and one ah....shadow shot. We also see him sewing a thong.
(c) Ken, played by Matt Bomer. I ONLY went to this movie because Matt Bomer is in it. MATT BOMER STRIPPING, Y'ALL. I just wish he'd been featured more in it. His character does a lovely Ken Doll impersonation, and he's friendly enough to let young Adam grope his wife's boobs. Yup.
(d) Troy(?), the Hispanic dude. He um...doesn't do much in this movie that I can think of now, besides the stripping.
(e) Tarzan. Tarzan is large, hairy, and freaky. Basically the sort of dude that you'd find is popular at Burning Man...but I just don't see how this guy would be cast as a generic woman's fantasy. Everyone else shaves themselves down, Tarzan is a walking hairball and uh, gross. Okay, so clearly Matt Bomer is my type more than this dude, but ughhhhhh.

Why is Mike magic? I bet you'd like to know. Me too! Actually, while his dancing is good enough--he favors a hip-hop style--his solo dances feature sad-ass costumes compared to everyone else. Like he comes out dressed in a baggy hoodie and baggy pants to start his hip-hop dance and I thought, "Aren't you supposed to be every woman's fantasy? Well, women do not fantasize about dudes in baggy hoodies on the street who look like the schmucks they might date in real life. Turnoff. Get the clothes off now."

Anyhoo, after Tarzan uh, OD's on something before his part of the show starts, Mike throws Adam out on the stage (to "Like A Virgin") for the lulz. Adam doesn't try to sexy dance or strip AT ALL, but he does plant a whopping kiss on the birthday girl in the audience. Which means he has "something," and next thing you know Mike is taking him shopping for stripper wear. Which Brooke finds at the house--plus she catches Adam with her razor-- and naturally, she's all "What the fuck?"

I forgot to mention that after the first night of stripping, Mike and Adam go out with birthday girl and her friend, and they jump into the ocean just for lulz, and then Adam is all, "Can I be best friends with you?" and Mike is all, "okay." Right-o, because a 30-year-old doesn't have any other friends besides a kid he's adopting. So anyway, there's a lot of amusing/hot strip shows that are deeply entertaining, and Adam and Mike go party a lot.

Back to Mike's dreams! Mike somehow has no credit or bad credit, but thinks that if he can drop a wad of ones down at the bank, they'll give him a good credit loan for this custom furniture business. He goes to the bank all nicely dressed in a suit, with glasses on(!), and the lady at the bank is so clearly distracted by Teh Sexy that she can barely get out that she has to deny him the loan. In the very next scene after this, we see Mike dressed in Marilyn Monroe drag, dropping by Brooke and Adam's wearing this, then sitting on Adam's face to wake him up. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Nice whiplash, movie!

For the Fourth of July, all the strippers, plus Brooke and other random women such as Mike's hookup Joanna, go out to some abandoned sandbay. At one point Brooke is all, "I'm stranded on a deserted isle with all of the male strippers in Tampa. However did I get so lucky?" She manages to deliver this line like she'd rather be dead. Joanna (who is bi, let's not forget) comes over and starts eyeballing Brooke's bod and checking out all of her tattoos, which Brooke is quite embarassed about. I'm inclined to tell Brooke that if she doesn't like her tats any more, she could always like, wear a bathing suit with slightly more coverage.

Interestingly enough, text tattoos are a thing in this movie. Both Brooke and Mike have some tiny text tats written under their armpits for um...some reason. Adam also has a text tat, though it's on his arm and big enough to read-- "What Goes Around, Comes Around." Oh, Adam, some day that will happen to you.

Anyway, Mike likes Brooke and cracks funny jokes at her here and there, but when he tries to ask her out, it doesn't go well. He also tells her that he's saved $13k from seven years of stripping for his custom furniture business.

Back at work, Adam starts pushing E pills given to him by the DJ. He brings what turns out to be a metric fuckton of pills in a backpack to a private sorority stripper party he and Mike work, and passes one on to some girl. The girl's boyfriend gets ticked at this, and a very amusing fight breaks out between the young, plain, lame boys and the two near-naked stripper cops. Mike drags Adam out of there, backpack be damned. Adam tells Mike he only had "a hundred" pills in there and Mike figures that's about a thousand bucks and Adam can cover that with his tip money, so whatever. But not so much!

There's a party scene where Adam gets to grope Ken's wife's boobs--"we're both okay with it!" and presumably has some kind of foursome. Adam also starts boffing some chick with glazed eyes and multicolored hair (I hate to say it, but this is the kind of role Brittany Murphy would have done, particularly after 8 Mile) who seriously brings her baby pet pig with her everywhere. There are some very amusingly shot acid trip scenes in which the pig shows up. Eventually we find Adam passed out in a pile of his own vomit--with the baby pig eating the vomit. HILARIOUS. You need to drink every time the pig is on screen, y'all. Brooke gets super mad at Mike for this. There's also a funny camera shot from Adam's POV looking up crookedly from the back seat of the car while Brooke yells at his ass.

Mike comes home to find some thugs trashing his house, because the DJ guy uh, couldn't stop him. Turns out that dumbass lost a gajillion pills at the sorority house, and owes $12k. Mike hands over almost his entire savings to save this dumb fuck, and you're thinking, "Dude, that idiot is not worth the money. He'll be in the exact same situation next week and not learn ANYTHING." Mike goes over to Brooke's looking for Adam--she's kicked him out-- and then delivers one of the most incoherent monologues you've ever seen, which made me wonder if this was one of those "improvised" movies. Mike doesn't even know why he used his money on this dumb kid. And in the next scene we see a cheerful, happy Adam thanking Mike for everything and making his life wonderful through stripping and clearly he hasn't learned shit.

At the next stripper show, Mike claims he has to pee and walks out the back door, never to return. Nobody really cares. Mike goes over to Brooke's and tells her he quit stripping and doesn't know what to do next. They agree to go out for breakfast, in like seven hours. They make out. That's it.

I can see how the rest of their lives go now: Mike continues to work roofing and shit like that, doing custom furniture on the side. Brooke gets her nursing license. Both of them really, really, really wish Mike hadn't introduced Adam to stripping. Adam becomes completely wasted and fat by age 30 and OD's by age 40.

Anyhoo, the movie gave me a lot of lulz and will be great to watch while drunk someday.

Some drinking game links!
Game One.
Game Two.
Game Three.


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