I’ve seen three movies this summer (I use the term ‘summer’ loosely) and as befits the season they are all typical blockbuster fare, although one tries hard (and fails) to be more than just a pretty picture.
The Avengers
There really isn’t much to say about The Avengers except that it achieves exactly what it sets out to do and does so with style and wit, thanks to a smart script and direction by Joss Whedon. The interplay of the various heroes and villains is spot-on, the quips are funny (even if they don’t always perfectly fit the character doing the quipping), the action is well-choreographed and remarkably easy to follow. This is an achievement in and of itself since so many action movies chop up the action into an incoherent series of quick cuts.
I give The Avengers 8 out of 10 Thor hammers.
Magic Mike
I hadn’t even heard of Steven Soderbergh’s latest film when I was asked to go see it. A film looking at the seedy side of male strippers? Sure, why not? As it turns out, this is an entirely decent look at a lifestyle that is often anything but. The titular Mike is played by Channing Tatum, whose name will forever sound backward to me. He’s a 30-something male stripper with dreams of striking out on his own as a custom furniture designer. To pay the bills he works a couple of other gigs, including the one where he takes off most of his clothes. The characters and dialogue both feel authentic. I especially liked the character of Brooke, Mike’s would-be girlfriend and sister to the troubled Adam. She spoke in a plain, honest way that worked really well. She was also very good at giving The Look, for both comedic and dramatic purposes.
Speaking of which, the film essentially starts as a comedy and grows progressively darker and more serious as Mike and Adam both start spiraling downward. The change in tone comes gradually and doesn’t feel forced so I didn’t have a problem with it. The ending (and by ending I mean the literal last minute of the film) felt strangely pat, almost like something out of a sitcom’s Very Special Episode. It didn’t feel wrong, exactly, it just didn’t fit with the way the film had been going. It was nice, though, and doesn’t appreciably detract from the experience.
With an engaging cast of characters (Matthew McConaughey is excellent as the strip club owner/performer) Magic Mike is an enjoyable slice of bare-cheeked life.
(The experience in the theater was further enhanced by a woman sitting to my left who gasped audibly every time some male flesh was revealed — which was frequently. Her shock/delight was quite cute. Not surprisingly the audience was mostly female.)
I give Magic Mike 7.5 out of 10 thongs.
