Magic Mike XXL

On 13th July, it was a Monday, hubs dragged me to the cinema to watch Magic Mike XXL. A week before that, I had declared loudly enough for everyone in my family to hear that I was not going to watch Magic Mike XXL. So hubs knew jolly well I did not want to go see the sequel to hunky men removing their clothes. In 2012, when Magic Mike came out, I almost had to go to the cinema alone because my kids were underage and I had no gal pals with similar taste in movies and hubs was too much of a man to go see a movie about male strippers. Ah, as it turned out, hubs did accompany me to see Magic Mike because he couldn't bear the thought of his wife sitting alone in the cinema, squealing to men with rippling muscles tearing off their clothes..

Magic Mike turned out to be a disappointment to me maybe because I set very high expectations. I expected the full monty which I did not get. (you can read my full experience here) Since that movie, I have also started secretly hating Channing Tatum. I have invested a lot in Channing Tatum - Dear John, The Vow, 21 Jump Street and White House Down. This man has the full package - a body that rocks, a nice enough face, talent, okay voice and nothing freaky. Except when he dances. I admit he's a pretty good dancer. He's got the moves. Unfortunately, I started watching Channing Tatum, the actor before I knew he was a dancer. Magic Mike brought the dancer and actor in Channing together and that was freaky. Everytime he broke into any moves, I choked with laughter. I simply couldn't take him seriously. And I started hating him because he destroyed my image of him as a romantic hunk. Now all I see is that big ole clown face.

As I was saying, hubs dragged me to see Magic Mike XXL. I decided I would lower my expectations and expect less skin. But secretly, I think that a movie about male stripping has to at least show a couple of seconds of full monty or it can't be called male stripping.

Ah. Magic Mike XXL is much more than male stripping. What I got was a roller coaster ride of pelvis grinding, floor humping, more pelvis grinding and many more floor humping. It was hilarious. There wasn't much of a plot. A group of strippers from the previous movie, Magic Mike decided to do one last stripping at a strippers convention. (yes, there is such a thing) They travelled to the location in a bus and along the way, there was some adventure and more pelvis grinding/floor humping opportunities. Trust me, there were many boring moments in the movie, mostly the talking scenes. I yawned several times. Each time I felt myself falling asleep, the scene would shift and we would be back to the pelvis grinding, floor humping. Woo hoo! The dancing in this movie was much more interesting and difficult. Not surprisingly, for the finale, a new guy, probably a professional dancer was roped in to dance with Channing Tatum. Alas, there wasn't much stripping although we did get to see some G-strings. Men in g-strings - more comical than exciting. And once again, no full monty.