The third installment for the sleeper hit franchise Magic Mike will arrive in theaters on Friday and some critics seem a little turned off by the film’s out of touch feminist messaging.
The Magic Mike series has never been known for its depth or messaging and has generally been regarded as a fun popcorn flick for women in need of some theater-going eye candy. According to some critics, Magic Mike’s Last Dance tries a different approach for the third time around by injecting some feminist gender politics into the proceedings. Christian Toto of Hollywood In Toto described the plot as follows:
The franchise, named after Tatum’s buff main character, returns this weekend for one last strip. There’s something different about “Mike” this time, though, and it has nothing to do with the star’s workout regimen.
“Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” which finds director Steven Soderbergh returning to the series, sees Tatum’s character reconnecting with his first love – stripping for rowdy women. Tatum’s Mike teams up with a rich, estranged woman (Salma Hayek) to re-imagine a stage production with allegedly regressive gender themes.
That’s your first clue that this “Dance” packs a decidedly woke approach. The focus is on consent and female empowerment, according to the film’s early reviews, not bulky men parading for the pleasure of women and gay men.
As it turns out, even liberal critics like to have their female escapist eye candy served up sweet and fresh with no side-helping of woke to spoil the experience.
Lena Wilson of TheWrap lamented that Magic Mike’s Last Dance offers neither the gritty realism of the first film nor the campy sexiness of the second film by instead opting for a “faux girl power” message that falls flat. She wrote:
The film desperately strives to be a spectacle with a tired, faux-feminist message. It is a grandiose love story made for a rowdy audience with unromantic expectations. A filthy early dance sequence promises more for the horndogs, and Stephen Soderbergh’s slick direction lends some artistic cred, but this threequel is gutless — and relatively crotchless.
It’s absurd for a “Magic Mike” film to tackle these issues at all. The franchise has succeeded, for better or for worse, because hordes of women and gay men will happily turn their brains off and surrender themselves to the film’s abundant glitter and glutes. Seeing this movie try to solve for female empowerment feels like watching your overly political cousin turn Thanksgiving into a hunger strike. Nobody asked, and in fact, we all came here with the opposite goal in mind.
Though Indiewire gave the film a positive review, writer Jude Dry said the film’s attempts at feminist messaging feels like a “playground lesson in consent.”
“Carolin’s script falls short around this laughable excuse for a feminist aesthetic, in which rich women are empowered by keeping their husbands’ money. Against this backdrop, the movie’s obsession with men ‘getting permission’ before touching a woman rings even more hollow, like a playground lesson in consent,” wrote Dry.
Likewise, Rolling Stone wrote that the film’s “pleasures mute themselves beneath its good intentions.”
Variety also said that the film’s message of a woman having “whatever she wants whenever she wants” it fails to resonate.
“Unless of course, that woman is watching Magic Mike’s Last Dance, in which case, she can only count on getting a fraction of what she wants, wrapped in platitudes about empowerment and consent,” wrote Variety.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance has a 57 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.