A friend of mine that’s already seen a screening of Magic Mike XXL told me they liked it better than the first one. I’m not going to reveal this friend’s gender, but suffice to say I have also heard this one is a little more of a crowd pleaser with a lot of the drama from the first film stripped away. To that point, I am expecting a movie that plays more toward the kind of film female audiences were expecting the first Magic Mike to be. Sort of a road trip feature with lots of man skin, grinding and sexual innuendo.
As a fan of the first film and its characters, and someone that tends to assume it’s sort of hard to mess up a road trip movie (yes, I know, some have been bad, no need to rush to the comments to tell me which ones), I’m looking forward to this one. I’m just expecting something a bit less in the drama department and a little more on the humor side of things and probably some silly little love story on the side.
Here’s the plot:
Picking up the story three years after Mike (Channing Tatum) bowed out of the stripper life at the top of his game, Magic Mike XXL finds the remaining Kings of Tampa likewise ready to throw in the towel. But they want to do it their way: burning down the house in one last blow-out performance in Myrtle Beach, and with legendary headliner Magic Mike sharing the spotlight with them. On the road to their final show, with whistle stops in Jacksonville and Savannah to renew old acquaintances and make new friends, Mike and the guys learn some new moves and shake off the past in surprising ways.
Magic Mike XXL hits theaters on July 1, and I’ll be seeing it this Thursday. Back again with Tatum are Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash and Adam Rodriguez with the likes of Matt Bomer, Andie MacDowell, Jada Pinkett Smith, Amber Heard, Michael Strahan, Elizabeth Banks and Donald Glover joining the bump and grind with, sadly, no Matthew McConaughey.
Now, check out a new clip from the movie below as well as 43 new pictures over the next couple of pages.
