Magic Mike Xxl is everything that the first Magic Mike film wasn’t.
Audiences who walked into 2012’s original Magic Mike expecting a straightforward raunchy stripper comedy should have known better than to trust that Steven Soderbergh had something that simple up his sleeve.
While there are plenty of amusing moments throughout Magic Mike, the film felt closer in tone to 1970s character dramas than something like Striptease or Rough Night.
Soderbergh’s mature, understated study of the immediate ramifications of the financial crisis explored the desperate options that working class people had to go to in order to provide for themselves, and displayed the world of male entertainment in a startling realistic way.
It’s a film that showed us a side of Channing Tatum we hadn’t seen before.
By comparison, Magic Mike Xxl ditches these more serious implications in favor of a joyous road trip adventure.
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