The least strippery of the instalments.

This MM isn’t so much about “working it” as it is about learning to work with a patron of the arts.  And it’s not exactly so much about stripping as the others… perhaps in line with the more delicate sensitivities of a more “now” audience?  Whilst previous one’s included at least one full frontal or one fuzzy d-shot, this one is best described as a bunch of male topless dancers.  Much more PG than the other ones… but you’ll probably still need a butler to cover your child’s eyes at points. It is M-rated.

And it’s got the best storyline of all three MMs.  It’s a very rags-to-riches type story.  I LOVED the way it opened with about one singular line of exposition that summarily reminded and dismissed everything that may have happened in and between and after the previous MMs.  You don’t need to know the other films to enjoy this one – in fact it may be better as a standalone.  I also really enjoyed the slow realisation of who our sometimes narrator is.

So this one is a delightful mix of class-culture, perhaps as a more dominant force than economics.  For those not versed in the earlier films MM1 (2012) is all about earning a quid in the face of economic downturn and America’s restrictive credit rules.  One is a charming story about one good looking guy trying to get his bespoke furniture business off the ground.  MM2 (2015), or MM-XXL, is a pretty trashy story about a bunch of strippers going on a spring break road trip up the US East Coast to Sexpo, if I remember correctly… but this one, MM3, is almost a comedy of manners.  Almost.  Against a backdrop of economic chaos caused by covid this time.

Salma Hayek, now with additional last name Hayek Pinault, is, as always, an unstoppable force of passion and swearing.  And her accent is one of many in a rich tapestry of voices.  Set in England, Channing Tatum’s American accent (“pardon my French”) is nearly isolated amongst a cast of different English intonations.  And of course, the dominant language spoken is that of the body as Salma and Channing work together to choreograph a spectacle of fit men dancing.  If you want to just watch men dancing this is a lot like and extended dance video.  Again – the really strippery bits are few and far between.

The script is clever and witty and I laughed a lot.  There is a great butler character who has some excellent lines and some even more excellent non-lines.  There’s a sassy teenage girl.  A nose-pierced feminist playing a period damsel… this perhaps is where the film lost most of it’s points for me because I wanted them to stick more strongly to their stage play Isabella Ascending and add strippers; I wanted a period mash-up.  I also found it very, very odd that for all the big game they talked about the out-dated nature of Isabella Ascending’s storyline, that in the end that was the very story they told.

Channing, as always, dances, dances topless, and dances well – is he not *the* best known dancer-actor in the world today?  Salma is great.  It’s the second time Soderbergh has lined up to direct MM and he’s clearly still into making these stories look great – there’s something to be said for a director who can be so flexible… can consistently tell great stories across a range of genres.  From heists like Oceans 11, 12, 13 and Logan Lucky (2017), to features filmed on iphones like Unsane (2018) and High Flying Bird (2019) to all the things in between like Solaris, Contagion and Erin Brokovich… he’s diverse.

Anyway, it’s a tough call.  It’s a lot more toned down than previous MMs, whilst also being more dry-humpy in parts.  I think it probably has the clearest storyline, even if I didn’t like the way they wrapped up their fairytale.

Stripper/dancer movies* are rarely in my wheelhouse, but as a stripper/dancer movie, which is what it is…

J* gives it 4 stars.

*I’m part of the way through Hustlers (2019) and I’m still not sure if I’ve seen it and forgotten it, or if I just saw the trailer so much I think I might have seen it.