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Magic Mike (DQ)

4/10

Stars: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Cody Horn, Olivia Munn, James Martin Kelly, Joe Manganiello, Adam Rodriguez

Director: Steven Soderbergh

How they managed to get this story of male strippers to run 110 minutes is one of the wonders of the age. It has virtually no plot, and there's only so much director Soderbergh can do to vary the strip sequences themselves.

However, the lean, lithe, lip-curling McConaughey is just wonderful (and a very attractive, gravel-voiced singer to boot) as the boss of the troupe - but that's as far as it goes: a sensational performance in a grindingly (pun intended) ordinary film.

Tatum is disappointing (and too reserved) in the title role, while Pettyfer barely registers as the kid who joins the troupe, to the disgust of his sister (Horn, very average), whom Magic Mike (that's Tatum) inexplicably fancies, and who makes him query where his life is taking him.

The mumbly, naturalistic dialogue is not only difficult to follow, but ineffectual to boot; McConaughey apart, and there's not enough of him, it's a crashing bore. Once its characters step off the stage and back into their everyday lives, the film has pretty much nowhere to go.

David Quinlan

USA 2012. UK Distributor: Lionsgate. Technicolor.
110 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 1, Swearing 2.

Review date: 09 Jul 2012