Magic Mike XXL is the sequel to 2012 film Magic Mike. It's of course a movie that one doesn't go see for the story, it's all about the eye candy. The dancing and scantly clad men are the equivalent of expensive CGI set pieces (and honestly, they're far more entertaining) in the world of Magic Mike. We get some pretty good ones in this sequel. Joe Manganiello (from HBO's True Blood) gives a striptease to a bored female clerk in a convenience store where he rips open a bag of Cheetos seductively and makes it rain with a bottle of water. Channing of course puts in quite a few dance numbers, the best being his impromptu number in his wood-shop where he grinds a steel bar while thrusting and break dances all over his furniture-diagrams.
While all of that is as fun to watch as it sounds, those scenes are unfortunately sandwiched between a lot of boring and sometimes needlessly dramatic scenes. There's a lot of new characters introduced, and with them a lot of aimless subplots that don't lead to any payouts. Tatum and Manganiello have way too many bro-fights, and Matthew McConaughey is no where in sight. There's also an issue with some of the dance numbers (especially Tatum's final dance) being overtly sexual. Now, I'm not saying that lightly, this is a movie about male strippers called Magic Mike after all, but still, the dance numbers shouldn't simply look like Tatum is using a girl as a prop to hump. There should be some mystery, otherwise it's just soft core porn.
Though many of the dance numbers are quite fun, there aren't nearly enough of them to justify sitting through the rest of the film. It's simply feels to disjointed and aimless.