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75Selling anyone the right to touch your genital area for a couple of bucks is not a good way to build self-esteem. Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike makes this argument with a crafty mixture of comedy, romance, melodrama and some remarkably well-staged strip routines involving hunky, good-looking guys.
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75Magic Mike takes itself seriously - not so seriously that there isn't room for a little humor, but this is not an excursion into cheesiness and gratuitous nudity.
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91The movie is Mike's story, and Channing Tatum proves himself a true movie star. His Mike glides through the world with the ease of a god, and on stage he's electrifying.
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50Magic Mike slowly degenerates into a simplistic cautionary fable. I didn't see that coming from a sharp observer like Soderbergh.
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100If it falls short of greatness, it's not by much - and it could end up growing with the years. At the very least, it is exceptional and one of the best and most original pictures to come along in 2012.
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80For starters, it's a pleasure to see Matthew McConaughey - a gifted actor who can't hide his boredom in trivial work - finally settle into the role for which he was born.
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88Director Steven Soderbergh is working very near the top of his game here, and if Magic Mike tells an old, old story about a young man, his talent, his rise, and his fall - see everything from "Saturday Night Fever" to "Boogie Nights" - he brings the confidence of a born filmmaker and a cast that's sharper than their characters and ready to play.
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40Life, however, cannot be lived entirely on stage, and once the characters have to take off their thongs and return to their real lives, the film goes nowhere that is either interesting, involving or surprising.
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70The process is called acting, and the man (Tatum) in the title role of Steven Soderbergh's flashy, not-so-trashy entertainment does it so well that the debate should be officially ended.
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75Almost as impressive as Tatum's moves are his comic flair and breezy grace. He proved his comic talents earlier this year in "21 Jump Street" and shows them off winningly here.
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63An odd and entertaining mix of backstage melodrama, indie verite, and "Showgirls" kitsch, the usual gender stereotypes are upturned.
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67Soderberg enhances the meager storyline with some creative camerawork (again shot by himself under the pseudonym Peter Andrews). The club scenes are always entertaining and some of the backstage imagery is unforgettable.
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75Magic Mike doesn't sizzle often enough as either cinema or beefcake, though. It's medium-strength Soderbergh, which is better than the full-strength stuff most filmmakers can manage but not exactly the brand that keeps you coming back for more.
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88One of the pleasures of Magic Mike is its egalitarian spirit and dedication to the ensemble.
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80Magic Mike is a fascinating film, one of his (Soderbergh's) best in recent years.
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75It's a nicely balanced blend of comedy, drama and athletic dancing that plies its trade with winking, unforced self-assurance.
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80It works - beautifully.
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75Like "The Girlfriend Experience," Magic Mike doubles as an of-the-moment film about life in a down economy, so much so that it would play like a bait-and-switch if it didn't just as thoroughly deliver as a movie about stripping.
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80It's better to think of Magic Mike as arty but energetic soft-core porn, with no pickle shots but plenty of juice. You should see it if only for McConaughey, an underrated leading man who finally gets a chance to use his strange timing.
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75If you can look past all the flesh and the thongs and the thrusting - and I admit that is an almost impossible task and probably not one you'd want to undertake anyway - what's most distinctive about Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike is its sense of fun.
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75It's guilty of some sleight-of-hand hokum, but in pulling the rug from under the norm, Magic Mike turns a trick.
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80Didn't Soderbergh notice there was pathos enough in Matthew McConaughey's beefcake proprietor, an ab-slapping, spandexed Peter Pan? Between this role and his owlish DA in the subversively sly "Bernie," the actor has finally found a way to subvert his six-pack. He's the magic here.
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83Even when Magic Mike is skimpier than a g-string it soars on daring, as if Soderbergh asked himself who could possibly make a good movie from such offbeat material, answered "I can," and did.
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83Magic Mike casts a seriously entertaining spell.
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80The final act has an inevitable wavering patch when the film is obliged to tut-tut about the shallowness of the stripping, drinking, bantering, carousing and whooping it has previously enjoyed, but this is terrific entertainment with a sideline in wry melancholia and testosterone-fuelled philosophy. Have 20 dollars.
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60Oddly, Magic Mike somehow looks like a much darker and more challenging movie than is actually the case.
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80Soderbergh lets his hair down with a frank, funny dramedy that bulges with humour, heart and smarts as McConaughey gives it everything he's got, in a potentially gong-grabbing turn.
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63Two things do redeem the film somewhat. One is the near-uniform excellence of the cast, led by Tatum, who has a compelling, eminently watchable aw-shucks charisma, and newcomer Horn as the cute, concerned sister. The other is the easy, naturalistic flow and ebb of Reid Carolin's dialogue, which gives none of his characters a vocabulary or insights above his or her station.
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Jul 2, 201280Rarely do you see an actor harness such physical energy on the screen, much less dance at this level of intensity while converting raw muscle mass into raging sex appeal. But Tatum is the real McCoy.
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Jul 1, 201270The 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.
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Jun 29, 2012100As we face yet another summer of brooding superheroes, it's Magic Mike to the rescue! He's got the civilian alter ego and the acrobatic skills to rival Spidey or Batman.
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Jun 28, 201263It's as if Soderbergh expects the film to mostly resolve itself, rounded out by the asses-in-the-seats appeal of the material, rote thematic underpinning, and ample charms of the cast.
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Jun 27, 201260The divide between Tatum as performer and Tatum as actor gives the film an interesting unsteadiness.
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Jun 27, 201270Skeptical at first, perhaps a little embarrassed, but before you know it, you're having a blast.
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Jun 26, 201250The highly calculated Magic Mike is pure Hollywood self-mythology - a neo-Depression musical, a wish-fulfillment fantasy for shitty times, an origin-of-the-star story, and a projection of that star's hoped-for future.
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Jun 25, 201280By way of remarkable sleight-of-hand, Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike both is and is not the freewheeling, fun-loving, male stripper extravaganza its trailers peddle.
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Jun 25, 201290The raunchiest, funniest and most enjoyably nonjudgmental American movie about selling sex since "Boogie Nights."
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Jun 25, 201280Ladies are gonna love Magic Mike, a lively male-stripper meller inspired by Channing Tatum's late-teen, pre-screen stint as an exotic dancer.