Magic Mike successfully balanced hen party sex appeal with wit and dramatic storytelling back in 2012 with Steven Soderbergh at the helm, but does Mike still have the magic three years on and without the excellent Matthew McConaughey and Alex Pettyfer?

For starters, XXL doesn’t try to outstrip the original but changes tack and switches up the tale of self-realisation for a fairly straightforward road movie.

Soderbergh may have vacated the big chair but he stuck around as cinematographer, editor and executive producer while his long-time producer Gregory Jacobs took the seat.


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And he’s done an OK job with a movie that looks decent and will no doubt titillate as you’d hope from a movie about strippers.

After he sensationally turned his back on the clothes-off business, Mike (Channing Tatum) is living his dream making bespoke furniture but it’s a tough living and his girlfriend – who he hoped was ‘the one’ – has made like pvc thong (taken off).

So when his old crew comes back into town with plans to ride off into the sunset after a last hurrah at a distant stripper’s convention, Mike decides to pull on the Velcro trousers and oil up one last time.

And off they go for some final wild parties and self-discovery.

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The pretext for the boys’ decision to bow out is that the owner of the club they dance in, the snake-like Dallas (McConaughey) has run off with The Kid (Pettyfer) to start a new venture in Macau.

While that’s obviously a way of getting around the absence of those two characters and an impetus for the plot to follow, it’s hard not think Dallas and The Kid’s self-serving, dark and seedy dealings in China would have been an intriguing movie.

Channing Tatum is still magnetic and enormously likeable as Mike, while the rest of the Kings of Tampa get the opportunity to shine this time out. And they make quite a cool crew, with good chemistry.

Arguably the highlight of the film is the sequence where a drugged-up Richie (Joe Manganiello) hits upon a kind of stripping epiphany in a petrol station shop. It's hilarity backed up by a heap of awkwardness.

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Unfortunately the female characters are rather underserved by the script, which is a shame given the acting talent of the likes of Jada Pinkett-Smith and Amber Heard. Elizabeth Banks makes the most of her cameo.

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Even though XXL doesn’t have the dramatic weight of the original, there is something in the film beyond the obvious girls-night-in formula.

The choreography, led by Alison Faulk, is genuinely jaw-dropping – if the final showcase drags for some, it’s probably the very reason others will head to the multiplex – while the cast are charismatic and the script fairly witty.

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Magic Mike XXL (15) is out Friday