Magic Mike’s Last Dance Review

The third (and maybe) final instalment of the Magic Mike franchise is a tribute to dance – not stripping. As with the previous films in which it was about the female gaze and pure unabashed gyrating. Magic Mike’s Last Dance is about finding yourself, who you are and what you want.

The film is follows Mike, who lost his furniture business during the pandemic and works as a bartender at catered events in Miami. That’s where he meets Max (Salma Hayek Pinault), the estranged and wants-to-be-divorced wife of a London socialite. Max offers Mike one last dance and after refusing (several times), he agrees, and it’s such a mind-blowing experience for Max hat she invites him to come with her to London and create and choreograph a stage production. But Max has her own agenda.

The male gaze has always been in the forefront in cinema and exploited to lure men into fantasies they never dreamed of. But times have changed and with equal opportunity for all, the Magic Mike franchise switches this so that the women have the power. The female gaze. This is highlighted in Max who is a strong and independent woman. She knows it. The men around her are merely pawns in this game she’s playing (including Mike to a certain extent).

The choreography is amazing (as has the previous films have been), but the time the choreography goes one step further. Of course we have Mike’s lap dance, but the film as a whole is an expression of how dance can bring one to another and show you want you want. This idea is what drives the film. Drives the characters to do what they do and give them that something extra that they’ve been dreaming of.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a triumph and definitely puts it in Channing’s exclusive dance filmography. A delightful treat for a girl’s night in.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is available on DVD and BluRay now!