Outwardly,things haven’t much shifted at the start ofMagic Mike’s Last Dance,advertised as the finale to the trilogy,with Soderbergh returning as director (having taken a back seat forMagic Mike XXL,the 2015 middle chapter).
Long out of the stripping game,Mike is now a bartender in Miami,his cherished furniture business having gone bust in the pandemic. But through it all he seems to have matured,his former hapless quality replaced by an almost Zen acceptance of whatever comes.
Mike has his pride,he’s smarter than he looks,and his people skills include a well-honed ability to set boundaries. But hey,if a rich lady at a charity benefit offers him $6000 for a lap dance,he’s not going to say no. And then,if afterwards,they fall into bed together,these things happen.
And then if Maxander Mendoza (Salma Hayek),the rich lady in question,wants to fly him to London and set him up as the director of a stripping extravaganza she’s staging to get back at her ex-husband – well,it’s not like he had that much else going on.
At this point,Magic Mike’s Last Dancereveals itself as a traditional backstage musical,drawing experience and personnel from the real-life theatrical spectacularMagic Mike Live (that opened in the West End in 2018,with Tatum as director).