“No woman wants to be suffocated by testicles.” This pearl of wisdom comes from Salma Hayek Pinault who plays grand dame Maxandra in Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the third (and presumably final) instalment in Channing Tatum’s stripper franchise. Maxandra has coaxed our hero, down-on-his-luck former stripper Mike Lane (Tatum), to London with the promise of $60,000 and the opportunity to direct his very own erotic dance show. But Maxandra’s vision, which quickly becomes Mike’s vision, too, is one of relatively chaste refinement. The aggressive air-humping and up-close gyrating of the former films are – for the most part – nowhere to be seen, replaced by ballet and interpretive modern dance.
But is “suffocation by testicles” not the very heart and soul of the Magic Mike franchise? Is that not the joy? Maxandra talks a good game about how liberating it is to be on the receiving end of a Mike Lane lap dance. (So life-changing is the experience that it inspires her to seek revenge against her dirtbag billionaire ex by filling his theatre with sexy, shirtless men.) But the show she and Mike eventually put on is so impersonal and sanitised that it’s hard to believe any of the women in the audience would share in that same libidinous revelation. While Magic Mike’s Last Dance is certainly entertaining, thanks to returning director Steven Soderbergh, there’s no escaping how aimless the film feels in comparison to what came before.
