Party On: MAGIC MIKE XXL

The main question left unresolved at the end of Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, a breezy downbeat male stripper drama with the economy on its mind, was a simple one. Will these entertainers find happiness? We watched them enjoy dancing on stage, commodifying their bodies to barely scrape by. But it wasn’t always fun. They had personal problems, and bigger dreams. In the end Magic Mike (Channing Tatum) gave it all up to start his custom furniture business. Now, three years later, we have a sequel, Magic Mike XXL, to answer the question of the characters’ happiness by ditching the heavier dramatic stakes. A romantic subplot, business angst, and drug-related problems go almost entirely by the wayside. Instead, we get a let’s-put-on-a-show road movie, inessential but hugely enjoyable, unfolding as a series of casual comic hangouts and winning theatrical dance sequences. It’s one long party.

Movies can take us places we’ve never been. For most of us, that’ll be a road trip from Miami to Myrtle Beach for a Fourth of July male stripper convention, ending in a performance space filled with screaming and swooning women ready to see perfect physical specimens perform cheeky choreography. Is there such a convention? I don’t know, but it makes for a great low-stakes movie idea. We meet Mike in Tampa, working hard to keep his business afloat when a group of his old stripper buddies (Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Adam Rodriguez, and Kevin Nash) show up. The DJ (Gabriel Iglesias) at the wheel, they’re on their way to the convention, and convince Mike to take a vacation and join them. His girlfriend dumped him. Their manager dumped them, taking the hot young star with him. (What a convenient way to write out the absent Cody Horn, Matthew McConaughey, and Alex Pettyfer, huh?) Why not take a fun holiday weekend trip together?

A loose, shaggy structure moves the guys up the coast, taking pit stops for relaxed sidebars. They find themselves watching a drag show, and then attending a beach party with some likable young women (including Amber Heard). They visit a luxurious private club where a group of performers (Twitch, Donald Glover, Michael Strahan) are presided over by an intensely charismatic host (Jada Pinkett Smith). They stop at a house owned by a wine-guzzling rich lady (Andie McDowell) for some flirtatious conversation. And of course they dance a little at each stop, and elsewhere too, including a hilarious convenience store challenge set to a booming Backstreet Boys song. (Boy bands are an important part of Florida history, we’re told in one of many amusing off-the-cuff conversations.) The movie treats the characters’ lives seriously, but their weekend lightly. It knows they, and we, just want to have a fun time. The result is a charming movie full of good cheer, easy rapport, a comfortable vibe watching a reunion of old friends happy to hang out and dance together again.

Soderbergh hands the director’s chair to his longtime assistant director/producer Gregory Jacobs, but stays on as producer, editor, and director of photography. There’s the same lush naturalism to the dim lighting, the loving consideration of physical presence as conduit of appeal. Reid Carolin returns as screenwriter, finding warm energy in stumbling banter, a funny, supportive, open-minded atmosphere. Without the dramatic tensions or interest in seedier elements of the first film, this one has the characters just enjoying the journey. Along the way, Mike convinces the group to toss out their old routines and just dance from the heart. We hear each man talk about their plans for the future, wishes for secure relationships, steady income. They’re driving towards one last big show. They might never see each other again. Why not do some new choreography, express themselves, go out on a high note?

So it’s three hoary old plots in one: road movie, dance movie, and one last job movie. The structure is similar to an early talkie musical like 1934’s Joan Blondell/Dick Powell picture Dames, which has lots of light comedy before climaxing in a series of elaborate dance sequences. Or look at it as a ribald Step Up movie, not just because it has two of that series’ alumni, but because it’s sprinkled with dance breaks before finishing off at a big contest with an elaborate show-stopping group number giving every character a shining showcase. Their raunchy routines are expertly choreographed collections of uninhibited, abs-baring, hip-thrusting, gyrations and gesticulations, spiced up with prop comedy and a little amateur Astaire and Kelly. Even a bit of the Marx brother’s Duck Soup mirror works its way into the lengthy climax. It’s thick with the electric ogling energy of performance.

That’s why the movie’s such a carousing delight. It finds exuberance of performance with a comfortable ensemble allowed unhurried scenes. Chemistry is what carries it, as well as a refreshing diversity, and low-key non-judgmental kindness, emphasizing the respect and enjoyment all involved on stage and off get out of their sexualized dancing. Other sequels would be tempted to open up new conflicts between the guys, find a villain of some kind, make the stakes higher. Though we learn a lot more about each character’s hopes, dreams, fears, and proclivities, there’s no heavy drama. It’s just a bunch of friends having fun, going with the flow, meeting interesting new people, and pulling together for a final job. It provides just enough plot for forward momentum and settles back into appealing sequences of likable actors thrown into eccentric situations. Light on its feet, there’s a meandering party atmosphere pervading every moment.

They're So Dancy, You Already Know: STEP UP ALL IN

I hadn’t realized how essential the Step Up movies’ simple plotting was until now. Step Up All In, the fifth in the series of loosely connected stories about exceptionally skilled dancers trying to find a way to do what they love, gets rid of even a simple plot, preferring instead a jumble of thin motivations and bad dialogue to get us from dance sequence to dance sequence. Its predecessors had sturdy structures, following competitions, protests, self-actualization, and/or romances to create throughlines on which to hang dancing. Here, screenwriter John Swetnam simply gathers up some characters from Step Up 2 the Streets, Step Up 3D, and Step Up Revolution, leaning heavily on the charm that comes with seeing familiar faces. I was happy to see them, especially since their unspoken histories bring the only actual characterization to All In.

The excuses for dancing involves the leader of the dance crew from Revolution (Ryan Guzman) left behind after his pals go back to Miami, leaving him in L.A. chasing an increasingly distant dream of making his passion his career. I liked how quickly the movie undoes the previous happy ending. "We won $50,000!" "Yeah, split 12 ways." He sees an ad for a Las Vegas dance contest and asks his friend and series regular Moose (Adam G. Sevani) to help him put together a new team. The winning crew gets a three-year residency at a fancy hotel’s theater. Victory could bring, at long last, a stable paycheck for staging the elaborately choreographed numbers that are these movies’ bread and butter. It’s the Fast Five franchise all-star team-up approach, although the Step Ups won’t go full Fast & Furious without wooing the Tatums back for another spin. Like that car-racing series, Step Up has won much affection for knowing the simple pleasures it must deliver. There must be an attractive, talented ensemble of dancers stuck in a situation that can only be danced its way out of.

The Vegas competition is a half-clever reality show parody (the screen fills with Twitter handles, producers do a smidge of meddling, and the game’s not as straightforward as it appears) hosted by a flamboyant pop star named Alexxa Brava (Izabella Miko). She dresses like a knockoff Lady Gaga and acts like a wilier Effie Trinket. The part is small, but Miko’s performance is big. She’s full of crazy energy, hilarious chewing away at the scenery as she plays ringmaster to the contest. Meanwhile, the real focus is on dancers pursuing love and self-validation between practice sessions and dance battles, but none of their speaking performances stand out.

They’re just there to fill in the connective tissue the script needs to get us to another production number. And what production numbers! They have fun props and interesting sets: a stage, a boxing ring, a laboratory, and some kind of futurist gladiator pit. So what if you spend the time characters stand around talking exposition working through lame strained melodramatics and obvious plot turns wishing they’d just shut up and dance? When they finally do, it’s glorious. The plot fades into the background and the movie is simply amazing. Their rivalries and romances are only interesting when communicated through body language and dance moves alone.

Like the other 3D efforts in the series (especially my beloved Step Up 3D, which is a perfect movie, the best possible version of what it wants to be) All In films the high-energy moves in shots that capture the dancers’ bodies head to toe, the better to admire their wide expressive range of movement within the space. They’re athletic, blasting through thrilling, effervescent hip-hop choreography set to booming club beats. Staged with wit and flare, the precision with which the actor-dancers (like Briana Evigan, Twitch, Mari Koda, Alyson Stoner, and twins Facundo and Martín Lombard) pop off the screen in low angle shots, takes full advantage of the crystal-clear depth of vision the shooting technology provides.

The director this time around is Trish Sie, a music video veteran making her feature debut. Most famous for the OK Go video “Here It Goes Again,” which featured the band dancing on a chain of treadmills in a one-take shot, Sie gets dutifully through the pained and strained story then brings creativity and energy to the only scenes that really matter. There’s no imaginative equivalent to the treadmill concept in the choreography, but there is a sweet dance to “Every Little Step” set on a carnival tilt-a-whirl after hours. Nice of the security guard to turn on the music instead of turning them in, a sign that even the extras want the characters to dance as often as possible. At best, the way those bodies move is jaw-dropping.

In the fantastic finale staged in a circular set with an ecstatic audience in the far background and dancers up, down, and all around the set, the energy in the performances is contagious. That’s where the characters are at their most appealing and impressive. None of the actors may be as effortlessly charming a screen presence as Fred and Ginger or Gene, but the material’s certainly not doing them any favors this time around, either. It’s a nothing plot filled with just enough dance and style to keep the good times rolling. Even with a lesser entry in the series, I still had to resist dancing my way out of the theater.

Dance Dance Revolution: STEP UP REVOLUTION

Like the Final Destination and the Fast and the Furious movies, the Step Ups have a concept that’s simple and adaptable enough that it’s become a dependable series that can move to an entirely new location with new characters and still retain audience affection. The first Step Up took place in a dance academy; Step Up 2 the Streets took dance battles outside. Those movies had small, somewhat forgettable, charms and, despite some athletic choreography and good intentions, it wasn’t until Step Up 3D that the series truly became something special. Director Jon Chu made great use of 3D in staging energetic dance numbers that served a cornball dance competition plot so engagingly good-natured that it was hard to resist.

Now here we are with Step Up Revolution, which isn’t up there with the best of the series, but is amiable enough, I suppose. It moves the action to Miami where we start in medias res with a gang of ambitious, young, talented dancers who express themselves through splashy flash mobs and call themselves, unsurprisingly, The Mob. The group is made up of characters new to the series, aside from Twitch, who turned up in the last one, but you get the idea. They want to win a YouTube contest – first one to a certain number of views wins a hundred grand! – but along the way they decide to make their dances more activist in nature. The kids’ vibrant, low-income neighborhood is being targeted for “beautification” by a big-time developer (Peter Gallagher, always welcome). They think their surprise public performances will be enough to change his mind, or at least change the city’s agreement.

As if the let’s-put-on-a-show and big-bad-real-estate-mogul plotlines weren’t enough, the suit’s daughter (Kathryn McCormick), a student at the local dance academy, has fallen in love with a waiter (Ryan Guzman), who happens to work at her father’s Miami hotel. He also happens to be co-founder of The Mob. It’s nice when all the tropes can dovetail so nicely, isn’t it? The leads settle into the by now standard Step Up romance of the hunk and the babe from different worlds who love dance almost as much as they love each other. Part of the reason why Step Up 3D works so well is the way it added a parallel, and far more believable, romance between two appealingly dorky, but no less talented, dancers. Revolution’s predictable script by Amanda Brody keeps things moving along efficiently by having characters flat out state what they’re feeling at any given moment, which is just as well, since the romantic leads are best at delivering exposition and dramatic revelations with the same slightly unconvincing blankness that passes for emoting in this movie.

But even though it could be (should be, maybe), this movie is not really about the story and the filmmakers know it. It’s about the dancing, which is lively and most definitely the product of very talented dancers who clearly worked long and hard to achieve such physicality and fluidity. It’s a shame that first-time feature director Scott Speer, handed such nice choreography capably shot by director of photography Crash (yeah, just “Crash”) so often seems content to chop it up, dashing from one angle to the next without sufficient space to fully appreciate the rhythmic athleticism on display. Even the best uses of 3D, like a great moment that looks head on as dancers bungee jump off of shipping containers, is marred somewhat by Speer’s need to cut away from time to time when one long dizzying shot would do. That the dancing ends up functionally enjoyable is a factor of the performers’ skills, not the director’s.

Still, for all of Revolution’s exhausted clichés and awkward editing, it’s not an altogether unenjoyable movie. It passes the time well enough. The movie’s slickly corny without getting too earnest, sexy without getting sexual, and up-tempo, even when things get, like, heavy, man. The social and class-conscious story has some nice resonances (even though the last few moments of the movie are essentially the thematic equivalent of “eh, whatever”) and the music picks up a nice salsa flavor from the fresh Miami setting. The acting’s not the best, but the performers are good looking and are great dancers. And for all the tired dance movie plotting, the climactic moments, improbable as they are, sort of had me going. It’s nice when one of the best characters from Step Up 3D steps in for a welcome cameo, but when The Mob comes together and pulls off a big statement dance that, well, I guess it’s a spoiler. But if you can’t see what’s coming next then you just haven’t seen enough dance movies.