'Magic' Mike (Channing Tatum) raises buildings by day and the collective heartbeats of women by night. An entrepreneur, one of several cash lines (there's brain below the brawn as he saves for a furniture designing future) is stripping. Less bright but no less arresting is young jobless Adam (Alex Pettyfer) whom Mike takes under his bicep and introduces him to the show's manager and choreographer (Matthew McConnaughy) whose own trajectory will take them to Miami, fame and beyond. That's if Alex, drugs and girls doesn't spoil the party first.

In essence, Magic Mike is wish-fulfilment meets star is born: a gender reversal Showgirls that drops the kitsch and soft-porn elements for pacy dance routines and a glut of gluteus maximus. It makes for a fizzy introduction to Mike's life, but one that soon gives way as Soderbergh effectively takes the eroticism out of eroticising lives to reveal agreeable blue collar workers for whom stripping is a job and little else. Having excised glamour, glitz and potential corn, he lets the story focus on character not pecs, as reflected in a grounded sensibility and down to earth dialogue. For the most part, it's easy to see Mike and his mates as real people with regular problems. Unfortunately, they're just not all that interesting.

If only Magic Mike managed more of the director's celebrated observational skill and was less of a by-the-numbers cautionary yarn, it could have been as challenging as he'd have you believe the film actually is. Failing that, as much of a boys-y Dreamgirls as the trailer would have you believe. But once the lights come up and the thongs come off, interest wanes considerably. This may not be vintage Soderbergh, in truth it's not even close, but at least it serves to reveal more of Tatum's hidden talents, is one of the least judgemental American 'sex' movies since Boogie Nights and gives an ab-stacked, Peter Panned, somewhat creepy Matthew McConnaughy his best role in years.

// COLIN FRASER
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