Quick Review: Magic Mike

It took me over a week after it opened until I finally got to see the much-hyped "Magic Mike."  After hearing so much about it, being somewhat loosely based on star Channing Tatum's experiences as a male stripper before he hit it big in Hollywood, and with Steven Soderbergh directing a cast that also included Matthew McConaughey, there was an expectation of a really intriguing tale -- while not skimping on the nudity, of course, given its "R" rating.

Unfortunately, there was no intriguing tale. Tatum's Mike, who strips and does odd construction jobs and such, is saving up to start his own business making custom furniture. He helps out a young slacker (Alex Pettyfer) by getting him work at the strip club (McConaughey plays the club's manager) while trying to get a relationship going with the guy's sister. Among the subplots is one involving drugs that plays into the main story, but none of it was very compelling.

I give full credit to Tatum for how his career is progressing. He's proven he can act some, and not just look pretty. His movies are now big hits at the box office. And he can dance, and not just for purposes of getting naked: the man can really move. McConaughey is fine as well, but Pettyfer's just a blank and the rest of the guys (including Adam Rodriguez, Matt Bomer, Joe Mangianello and wrestler Kevin Nash) are completely wasted, with nothing to do except dance. And the worst sin? The hyped nudity wasn't all that. The club scenes kept getting cut off just as they got good, or else there were just brief glimpses of performances. This entire movie was, after all the hype, a real letdown. My grade: C-minus.

Quick Reviews: The Lincoln Lawyer, Source Code

Because of laziness, procrastination, and other things, I've been slacking off here. So here are two movie reports in one post.

"The Lincoln Lawyer" is fun. Matthew McConaughey plays the title character, a criminal defense lawyer who does a lot of his work out of the back seat of his Lincoln while being driven all over Los Angeles. He gets a big case in which a spoiled rich overgrown kid (Ryan Phillippe) is charged with beating the crap out of a prostitute. While working on the defense, the lawyer and his investigator find similarities to another case they worked on, and things take a more sinister turn. It's predictable at times but the actors do a nice job. It's nice to see McConaughey doing something that isn't a romantic comedy -- or worse, "Surfer, Dude." My grade: B.

"Source Code" starts out with Army helicopter pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) waking up on a commuter train heading to Chicago, having no idea how he got there (last thing he remembered, he was flying a mission in Afghanistan), and seeing another man's face in a mirror instead of his own. Then a bomb explodes, and he wakes up alone in a small room where he's informed via video monitor by an officer (Vera Farmiga) that he's part of the "Source Code," a program that can send one's consciousness into someone else's body for the final eight minutes before the other person's death. Stevens' mission is to find out who planted the explosive on the train so the military can prevent an even worse attack that would kill millions. So, why only eight minutes? What happens to the other person's consciousness when your brain takes over his body? And why is Stevens spending time falling in love with, and trying to save, a passenger (Michelle Monaghan) instead of doing more to find the bomber? He's on the train. He's back in the room. He's on the train. He's back in the room. And so on. Not that bad, but I expect better from my boy Jake. My grade: C-plus.