Magic Mike

Steven Soderbergh is truly one of the most perplexing filmmakers working today. He's made some great movies like The Limey and Traffic, but I think the debate over whether Soderbergh is a "good" director would be a long one. He's been especially weird recently, because he is constantly making films whose trailers are nothing like the actual film. For example, The Informant! was billed as a quirky comedy and turned out to be a dialog-heavy Office Space-lite. Contagion was supposed to be a realistic look at a biblically-sized disease pandemic, and turned out to be an overwrought B thriller. Magic Mike should've been a raunchy comedy, and it turned out to be something hard to describe. Mike (Channing Tatum) is a Tampa-based male stripper who wants to start a custom furniture business, but is held back by bad credit and his club's weirdo owner Dallas (Matthew McConaughey). At one of his side jobs, Mike meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a lost kid living on his sister Brooke's (Cody Horn) couch. Mike likes Brooke, so he agrees to help Adam out and get him a job as a stripper. For a while things are great, and the lifestyle of cash, partying, and hot babes works well for Adam. But when he starts to get out of control and Mike starts to realize how truly unhappy he is, the dream begins to crumble. One thing Soderbergh does way too much is have overly long and usually single-shot dialog sequences where nothing is really achieved and the plot isn't progressed. When he has the right writer like in the aforementioned Limey, this can work well as a tool for character development and witty one-liners. However with a script as confused about its genre and tone as Magic Mike, these scenes serve only to bore the audience. And Magic Mike is very, very boring. I am comfortable enough with myself to know that a male stripper movie won't get me all uncomfortable and freaked out. I am also confident enough in my abilities as a film critic to decipher surreal films like The Tree of Life and The Skin I Live In. But I'm not that sure what to make of Magic Mike. There are moments I think were supposed to be funny and some people in my theater laughed, but the film plays everything completely straight. Even the moments that are clearly attempts at humor are shot with no music, barely any cuts,and lots of background noise. It's weird. Recently, Soderbergh claimed he would retire within two films. That was just before Contagion came out. Then he made Haywire. And then, he made Magic Mike. So I have to ask, when is he gonna stop? I mean, as long as he keeps making bad movies that is. I never saw Haywire so I can only count two strikes right now, but his IMDB already has at least three more projects lined up and I'm worried. Even though Soderbergh isn't my favorite director or anything, I don't want to see him tarnish the memory of his good movies. Maybe if everyone stays away from this turkey he'll get the message.