Strange it is to pay seven to ten dollars to see a movie about male strippers--and none of them even remove their tee shirts until a so- called "grand finale" at the end. This is when our boys actually strip down to speedos and jock straps. Wow. Channing Tatum, the main star, was all over the media months before the premiere, assuring one and all that this sequel to the highly successful original, "Magic Mike," definitely deserves a "hard X" since it'll show off a lot more of the guys than previously seen. As he winked and smirked, he also promised us he would keep the most handsome of the original strippers, Joe Manganiello, naked as much as possible. Tatum's promises never appeared. Instead, we have nearly two hours of non-stop verbal garbage as the guys ad-lib and we can't understand anything they say since they all swallow their words. In their van they're traveling to Myrtle Beach for a stripper convention and along they way, they have several encounters with women who are so unattractive they're only blurs. Then we come to big stripper event. We're tantalized by seeing other male strippers preparing for the show but we never see them. All we see is a hysterical carnival like routine featuring Tatum, Joe and Matt Bonner. They whirl around, move their hips against women and when they finish, we realize none of our hotties even showed their butts, let alone their joy sticks. Probably the most hideous sequence in the movie that drags on forever is when the guys stop at a plantation to see black strippers but it's all filmed so darkly you can't tell what's happening in the shadows. Poor Jada Pickett Smith. She should definitely grab the Raspberry Award for the Most Horrendous cameo in the movie. This is a movie that could safely play on the Disney Channel but even the kids would be bored out of their skulls.
Review of Magic Mike XXL
