Mike, an experienced stripper, takes a younger performer called The Kid under his wing and schools him in the arts of partying, picking up women, and making easy money.
Magic Mike has a conventional structure, yet a teasing question percolates beneath: If selling yourself is as much fun as this movie makes it look, what could be wrong with it?
– Owen Gleiberman,
Entertainment Weekly,
29 Jun 2012
fresh:
The dance numbers, choreographed by Allison Faulk, are inventive and athletic, but not really erotic; Soderbergh never lets you forget that, for these men, dancing is above all a job.
– Ben Sachs,
Chicago Reader,
29 Jun 2012
fresh:
Does a better job of mixing Chippendales-style guilty pleasures with reality-based cautionary tales than you might expect.
– Eric D. Snider,
Film.com,
29 Jun 2012
fresh:
Tatum, whose talents have been the subject of debate, also makes Mike genuinely affecting, not to mention articulate within the bounds of a sketchy script.
– Joe Morgenstern,
Wall Street Journal,
30 Jun 2012
fresh:
Soderbergh has created a spicy yet lucid, surgingly high-energy yet smartly modernistic musical.