God Bless America!

It’s summer again and the men formerly known as the Kings of Tampa are still as hot as South Beach sand. They’re not all stripping when we meet them again in Magic Mike XXL, however. Mike (Channing Tatum) is working hard for his own furniture business, Tito and Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias) are hocking fro-yo on a musical food truck and the others are preparing to retire from taking it off for good.

Most of us think the 4^th of July is a time for flags and fireworks, but the real explosives are apparently at The Stripper Convention (everyone calls it that like it’s the official name) in Myrtle Beach, SC. Veterans like Tarzan (Kevin Nash) and Richie (Joe Manganiello) are anxious to go there and have one last amazing performance. Mike is just heartbroken enough about his relationship and depressed enough about his company’s finances to drop everything and go on a crazy road trip full of drugs, strangers and random partial nudity.

What makes this movie great is certainly not the direction (Gregory Jacobs is no Soderbergh) or the plot. It’s far more holey and hokey than the first since it includes manufactured obstacles to overcome and a predictable ending where the heroes triumph after working hard through a montage. The selling point is that the actors have completely bought into all of the ridiculousness and do not take themselves too seriously. The comedy factor is upped as the strippers (who prefer to be called male entertainers) do some major introspection on their purpose and their dreams. I dare you not to laugh as Richie desperately tries to make a bored cashier smile or as Ken (Matt Bomer) goes all Oprah on a group of insecure housewives. The surprise cameos and cast additions are all delightful, except for that of Jada Pinkett Smith. Granted, she is almost believable as a Madame/Magic Mike’s ex-sugar mama. But the job of MC should have been left to MC – Matthew McConaughey is unmatched in the oily bravado it takes to guide people through a strip show. Pinkett Smith just seems stiff, grabbing her hat and jutting her hip awkwardly while introducing the Kings of Tampa and her new stars Malik (Stephen “tWitch” Boss of So You Think You Can Dance…he CAN dance) and Andre (Donald Glover).

Her performance was certainly not enough to make Magic Mike XXL less of an enjoyable romp. Mike’s sour-faced love interest has been replaced with smiling and multi-dimensional Zoe (Amber Heard) and the choreography is as impressive as ever. We were even treated with an reprise performance of Ginuwine’s Pony and plenty of dancing with built props. There’s singing, rapping and even a little painting all rolled into a hilariously entertaining journey. The writers definitely took the easy road with this sequel, but they proved that doing so is not always a bad thing.

Final Grade: A-

About The Author

Stephanie Taylor

Co-Editor/Entertainment Reporter

She may be a traffic engineer by day (hence the ‘stopsigngirl’ alias), but do not let her technical skills or multiple calculators fool you. Stephanie Taylor has a way with words. She will destroy any opponent in Scrabble, and get 50 points for using all 7 of her letters in the word “destroy.” She can a-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-e you in a spelling bee, having competed in no less than ten as a child. She uses correct punctuation in her text messages. It’s no wonder that copy editing comes naturally to her, and she is happy to fine tune the work of other writers before it reaches TRR readers.

Proofreading is not all that Stephanie loves to do. Regular reading without the proof is just fine, and she also loves to write. In fact, Steph has been writing since the tender age of 6 when she penned her would-be bestseller Mouse in Jail. It “would be” if all literary critics were in Kindergarten. Since elementary school, Stephanie has helped publish newsletters, yearbooks, and the Arts & Entertainment section of The Rice Thresher, Rice University’s student newspaper.

Stephanie’s other gigs have included singing her heart out in the chorus of My Fair Lady in Houston, doing improv comedy in front of hundreds of people in Atlanta, and teaching A.P. English in Los Angeles. She loves to travel and have cultural adventures like tubing down a river in Ecuador, dancing in a South Asian festival, or riding a ferry from Italy for 19 hours just to get real Greek food. Cooking and Yoga are also among Stephanie’s list of favorite things to do, but she cannot do them at the same time.

This native Texan genuinely adores reporting on entertainment as much as she loves to entertain, and is looking forward to learning more about what the D.C. area has to offer and sharing that news with you.

Stephanie Taylor also likes to write about herself in the third person.

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