Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023)

Steven Soderbergh returns to the saga of a Tampa furniture maker turned male entertainer, and the third installment finds our hero in London, broke, choreographing a stage production for a wealthy woman with an agenda. The film is a romance wrapped around a rehearsal, and it moves with the unhurried confidence of a director who has nothing left to prove. Channing Tatum remains an agreeable presence. Salma Hayek Pinault supplies the money and the motive.

The production at the center of the story exists to correct the theatrical canon. Max Mendoza halts a dusty play about a woman choosing between a rich suitor and a poor one, then rebuilds it so that the heroine may consider options beyond marriage. The climax breaks the fourth wall entirely, as the actress seizes a golden microphone and addresses the audience on the subject of what women should be permitted to want. It is a lecture, delivered with a straight face and a descending prop. We have seen this maneuver before, and we will see it again. The film commits to it without apology.

The ensemble is diverse in the unremarkable way that contemporary casting often is, with performers of color filling out the ranks without the screenplay pausing to comment on it. That is fine. Nothing here concerns race, the climate, the abuses of capital, or the varieties of embodiment. What we have is a modest entertainment with a thesis stapled to its finale. It is neither scandal nor revelation. It is a Tuesday.