Magic Mike

Who knows what motivates Soberburgh’s selection of projects. For a guy who plans to retire soon he sure makes some odd choices for his final films. Not that this semi-autobiographical film about the actor Channing Tatum’s early days as an exotic dancer is terrible, it’s just dull and adds nothing new to a fairly played-out genre. Tatum apparently wanted Nicolas Winding Refn to direct, and perhaps the young Danish director of last years awesome Drive would had given the film something that the seemingly board-with-filmmaking Soberburgh couldn’t, but I kind of doubt it. Tatum is good and his rising star-power made this a surprisingly successful film in terms of box-office, but it’s his co-stars Munn and McCaunghey who are more interesting. The dance sequences are well choreographed, but fairly simplistically photographed. Perhaps the point is for them too look a little boring and workman like, but that gets old quickly. I like a little more flash in my dance.