Magic Mike

I saw "Magic Mike" on the strength of Stephen Soderbergh as its director.  If you've seen the trailers, Channing Tatus stars as Magic Mike, who's a male dancer/stripper at the Exquisite club, where it's mainly a female clientele looking to have a good time with male strippers putting on various show skits and involving audience participation.  We're introduced to this world with the addition of newcomer, Adam (Alex Pettyfer), to the dance crew (comprising of other dancers played by Matthew Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Adam Rodriguez, and Kevin Nash), and Dallas (Matthew McConaghey) who runs the show and looking to expand from Tampa to Miami. 

"Magic Mike" explores the corruption of Adam in this world's lifestyle, and some mild consequences of bad decisions.   Mike is the veteran looking outside the life to something he can invest his energy and vision, and Dallas is the showrunner looking to keep the party going, even if he's approaching the golden years for such a profession, but still got some miles in the tank.  Adam's sister Brooke (Cody Horn) is apprehensive of Adam's new friends, job, and Mike takes a shine to her, but also has his own casual relationship, mainly with Joanna (Olivia Munn).

Obviously, this movie is targetted to women looking to see well-built guys strutting their stuff in the dance club, and for the most part, the women in my audience appear to enjoy those segments.  Soderbergh also knows that he needs to have a plotline running through the film, and while it's pretty basic, this low-budgeted approach allows for scenes to breath by using a single-take, not a lot of inter-cutting of scenes together, and it's just about burgeoning relationships, and also relationships crumbling due to either societal pressures, or financial ones.  Tatum actually does okay in these extended scenes, some of it felt improvised or as natural under the condition of the scenes as it could be.

I give it 3 stars or a grade of B, but it's a lot of eye candy directed towards the ladies in the audience.