The second male bonding themed movie this summer season after Entourage in a months time is Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to the surprise box office and critical hit in 2012 that's loosely based in lead actor's Channing Tatum's early career as a male stripper or as one of the characters says in a politically correct term: a male entertainer.
Fast forward three years later, Mike Lane (Tatum) left the group Kings of Tampa to put up a business but he was persuaded to go back to the group for a one last gig at the stripper convention in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Minus their big boss and recruit from the first film, Mike back together with the rest of the gang: Ken (Matt Bomer), Richie (Joe Manganiello in a great revelatory comic performance), Tito (Adam Rodriguez) and Tarzan (wrestler Kevin Nash) encounter drag queens, ex flames and cougars on one fun filled road trip that was shot in signature Steven Soderbergh style. The Oscar winning director may had transferred the reign of directing the sequel to his frequent assistant Gregory Jacobs but the script and the overall feel of the movie feels like an Ocean Eleven film transported to the South that you can feel the humidity and the sunshine simply by just watching it.
New recruits to the film include Jada Pinkett Smith as a club owner with such a sexy empowering performance you forget that in real life she has teenage kids, Amber Heard and it's great to see Groundhog Day's Andie MacDowell back on the big screen having fun as a Southern divorcee who longs for some good lovin.
Ladies would love the film for the actors themselves with their fit bodies gyrating onstage and guys like me loved it for it's sheer comic value and the friendship that it's characters showed in the film that I'm pretty sure most of us can relate to whether you take your clothes off for a living or not.
For a sequel of one of the funniest films in this decade, Magic Mike XXL does not disappoint.
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