Magic Mike

I was a stripper. Yes, I was. I was fairly good too.

This film however doesn't capture the reality behind the stage, on-stage or even the crowd.

The reality is that the male dancers - or even female dancers aren't all friends...they are greedy, selfish ego tripping characters who look forward only to the dollars. They fight backstage, they get drunk back stage and they do serious amounts of coke back stage.

Most male dancers are also gay. I am not and for that reason, the few men that are not gay will be reading "picture books" behind the curtain to ensure that they are "up" to the challenge when they are on stage.

The gay men will be taking care of each other respectively before they go on stage.

Most female crowds are mostly fat, overweight women who are nearing 50 and are there to get totally drunk. Male dancers will go to the table for them and pull everything off, but will not take them on-stage and perform nasty acts - clothed or unclothed.

Also - we didn't have groups of 5 or 6 go up on-stage and perform a routine set. With people travelling all the time and new people coming in and out, we barely knew who each other was from a daily basis.

Nobody fraternized with the bar-staff after closing...everybody was tired, stressed or too stoned to do anything. The bar-staff closed up and everybody got kicked out.

If anybody tried to do a back-flip on-stage, they would have been fired or told not to do that again...because of liability and safety and insurance reasons.

We made our money doing lap dances...not having a hundred girls throw money in our underwear on-stage.

The back room dressing areas were always slightly better than a warehouse - filled with all sorts of bar crap...regardless of the bar or location.

Anybody under the legal limit would never be allowed on-stage. There was always vice to make sure.

There was always so much tension in the dressing room...because we were competing for the same money, that more than the mere basic communication between dancers never existed.

This is a film based on the male stripper occupation, but misses out on the reality of it.

It's also over drawn for plot. So much could be edited out and would not make a difference to the story.

I was looking forward to see this, and I finally did. Wow...too long to watch a movie to see next to nothing of interest.

Ok I have watched this a few times. Every time I do I get legitimately angry over that terrible actress that is cast as Brooke. Yikes. She can't act at all and her facial expressions are cringe worthy.

She ruins the entire movie. So bad.

So many elements that could have made this a truly original movie. Instead it's confusing, meandering and ultimately pointless. Alex Pettyfer, the innocent entering the world of male strippers has a good face a great body but lacks life, yes, that's it, he's kind of lifeless. Channing Tatum, whose story, apparently, this is, has a body that seems to have been shaped by a genius, but a face that looks slightly unfinished. I didn't get his character at all. As an actor Channing tries far too hard. Matthew McConaughey is a hoot, Great chest and he seems to be relishing the spotlight. So, all in all, entertaining and little, very little else.

Steven Soderbergh's "Magic Mike" is short on needed magic. The promised backstage tale of male strippers conjures images of sexy men, pulsating music, and erotic choreography. Unfortunately, the expected companion piece to "Flashdance" or "Footloose" is not even "The Full Monty." Magic Mike, competently played by Channing Tatum, is a construction worker by day, a stripper by night, and a furniture designer by ambition. A fellow hard hat on the construction site, Adam, played by Alex Pettyfer, is drawn into Mike's stripper world by the lure of easy money and even easier sex. Little unexpected happens, and the audience for naked male flesh and sexual couplings is better served at the local porn shop.

The dialog is lame and often delivered listlessly. Perhaps strippers and their friends are low-key characters and talk like Mike and his friends, but eyes glaze and brains go numb after nearly two hours spent in their company. A physically fit Matthew McConaughey looks almost cadaverous as Dallas, the strippers' tough manager. However, McConaughey is effective, and his scenes resuscitate the film when he is on screen, which is all too briefly. Despite his age, McConaughey has the vulgar moves, the erotic gyrations, and the sexual aura that the other supposed strippers lack.

"Magic Mike" drags on and seems longer than it is. Soderbergh inserts a few arty shots, but generally fails to even capture the excitement of a "Flashdance," a glossy construction-worker-cum-dancer feature-length music video that moved to a beat and never bored. The music herein is forgettable at best, and the dancing owes more to Las Vegas posturing than Broadway or discotheques. Perhaps Soderbergh was the wrong director for the project, which was an odd choice for the man who made "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich." Magic Mike's story is unexpectedly downbeat, and the angst of a frustrated furniture designer is low on entertainment value. While the film will likely draw and disappoint gay and female audiences, perhaps men can relate most to Mike and his checkered career in pursuit of a dream However, few straight men will venture into a movie with the advertising and subject matter of "Magic Mike."

I went to see Magic Mike for two reasons--my friend LOVES to see guys strip and I had a cousin who worked as a stripper at the Hanger Club in Md. and kinda wondered what his tepid life was like?

Well despite the many guys doing hoochie kootchie moves on the screen and the hype that went with it---I still found the plot boring while the whole movie seemed to drag it's way thru like an animal with an injured foot! Magic Mike had that old old plot line character study---The main character finally takes a good look at his sorted life while his new protégée seems to follow in his footsteps and is destined to replace him. That ole character switcheroo story has been done in endless plots. The acting is not bad but very very dry. Adam's sister always carries the same expression of disapproval throughout the whole movie while Adam---even through he is the new kid on the block---just keeps looking clueless and insipid with no emotion or expression at all. And the ending of the movie just leaves you flat that some people couldn't get it---but like Flashdance, the hero finds his right path or destination and wins.

But most importantly, there are those tawdry naughty butt shaking strip scenes that made everyone pay the price of he movie ticket---but not enough scenes for the high prices today, Seeing this I can only say--my cousin must have had a screw loose in his head to do this for a living but it does show that a male stripper suffers in "comfort" from the booze, drugs and groupie followers that make it the good life!

So go see it for the strip scenes, girls---no moving story, no good acting.