Magic Mike: A Última Dança

My wife and I saw this on opening night at the movie theater. Surprisingly, it was a decent crowd with mainly couples. The beginning was o'k , the ending was pretty good but the middle was absolutely borrrring!!!! It will almost put you to sleep. There was no chemistry , no character development and not much going on. Unlike the first two , Mike had rapport with his dance partners , this one had nothing. The dance partners were too old to be a stripping act so that would not work, but they could have come up with something better. This will probably be the end of this one, as I'm assuming this is going to get a thumbs down - all the way around.

It's been almost eight years since the release of the Magic Mike XXL, which, in my opinion, gave the story the closure it needed. I enjoyed the first two films, minus the cheesy stripper dancing, because they gave you a feel for the lives these men lead as opposed to solely focusing on the stripping aspect. It was surprisingly engrossing. With Magic Mike's Last Dance, it does almost the opposite by focusing solely on Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek's phony romantic plot device as an excuse for Magic Mike to put on one final show, setting the film into a complete fantasy.

Now, don't get me wrong. I usually love Salma Hayek, but her acting in this film was terrible. I did not believe her character for one second and some of the lines she delivers are just awkward to watch. I was not buying her and Channing Tatum's romance at all. It was almost painful at times. Everybody else does a serviceable job, but when you have leads that have zero chemistry with each other, it can be a deal breaker.

Unfortunately, because of the chosen focal point for the story, the dancing also suffers. We get a decent enough show at the end, but there is only one other dancing scene in the film. The other bits of dancing are just that. Bits because they show them training to put together the show. Not one full dance number from that first dance at the beginning, all the way to the end.

Speaking of dancing, none of the dancers have any sort of personality or even play any role in the film other than to just be there as dancers. Thus bringing us back to the issue of the central plot focusing on the wrong thing. They didn't even bring back any of the original dancers to dance or even play any part in the movie besides a cameo group video chat for 2 minutes. The film even builds it up with Mike constantly dodging their phone calls but they do nothing with it and that was probably my biggest disappointment.

The only positive thing I can say about it is the direction is well executed. The camera angles, the effects and the editing work in the films favor, but that is not enough to save it from being a bad film.

Overall, I couldn't recommend it. The first two are diamonds in the rough, and this one is a rock that sinks straight down to the bottom of the ocean. If it wasn't for Steven Soderbergh's tight direction, I would rate it lower.

1.5 pumps out of 5.

The two stars i gave this is the ten stars I gave the incredible dance talents they found for the "backup dancers" minus the stars I would have given the movie without them.

I can't really describe accurately just how uncomfortable I was during the majority of this movie. I watched this alone and still covered my face out of awkwardness because of the awful plot, clunky dialog and cringeworthy dance-theatre mashup. Normally I can suffer through the plot of dance movies and enjoy the choreography, but this just took cringe to a whole new level.

Do yourself a favor and go watch one of the Step Up movies instead if you feel like a dance movie. This one is just pure garbage.

I went to see this film with my family. This movie almost commits the unpardonable sin of being dull.

This time "Magic" Mike is a bartender at a wealthy woman's mansion in Miami. After giving her a lap dance, she invites Mike to visit England and turn her ex-husband's theater into a burlesque show. She wants revenge on her husband and thinks this will be sweet vengeance. Why? Who knows, and by the time the film is over, who cares?

The problem with this movie is it is cold and emotionless.

The bigger problem is there is no chemistry between Salma Hayek and Channing Tatum. That ruins the film.

The idea that Salma wants revenge on her husband by turning the upper-crust theater owned by her husband makes me think that this movie would have been better with Joan Collins as the female lead. Is Magic Mike: The Last Dance the film Joan Collins never starred in?

This was supposed to go out with a bang. But it's fell way off the mark.

I know the original dancers were older now but i think they could've worked them in some how. This film just feels forced.

Salma Hayek plays a woman who probably didn't have much money of her own and was able to sway a wealthy British man with her physical assets and marry him, only to divorce him and come out of it with a big paycheck for herself. She's obviously a woman who never wants for anything and is extremely privileged and bored. So now her latest passion project is this "last show" for Mike. She's also a woman with huge self-esteem issues and likes to put words in peoples mouth in order to gaslight them into thinking they're saying something offensive to her. Hayek's acting just wasn't good in this. And honestly her character was annoying and took away from the film.

To put a cherry on top we're also forced to contend with a spoiled, entitled, wise cracking and stereotypical modern teenager who tries to come off as deep and philosophical with the intermittent narration of the ideology of dance. While this character isn't the worst in this film (Hyek's character is), it definitely doesn't add to the story.

In summary, the whole movie just didn't have the same energy or direction as the first two. It seems like this was a cash grab with aim of maximizing profits off of the Magic Mike name and franchise. I really thought this movie was going to be good. But we're just left with a product that was rushed and lazily written.