Magic Mike XXL Doesn't Need a Plot: It's Hot

Mike is single again and ready to reunite with his stripper pals for one last hurrah at a stripper convention in Magic Mike XXL. We all know the ladies loved the original flick, but does this one maintain the fire? Here's what critics are saying:

• Its "plot can fit on a Post-it," writes Wesley Morris at Grantland. "But what's great about this movie—and it is great in its ridiculous way—is how it sustains a balance of hilarity and eroticism." It's much more intimate than the first: It feels as though "these men are dancing only. For. You," he writes. "I wasn't only entertained. I was moved and exhilarated." Watch out for Jada Pinkett Smith, who "puts her steeliness to its sexiest use ever," he adds.
• Peter Rainer isn't in love, but, "given the arrant attempt to cash in on the surprise success of the first film ... Magic Mike XXL is a lot better than it has a right to be," he writes at Christian Science Monitor. It "mostly dispenses with plot in order to serve up what it does best: showcase male stripper gyrations," but it's also "good-natured," he writes. "The women in the film, not the male dancers, are ultimately the ones who are celebrated."

• Ty Burr, however, isn't feeling it. "The first hour of Magic Mike XXL is deadly," and not in a good way, he writes at the Boston Globe. Though it "may get to you" in the end, he blames the absent original cast members, including Matthew McConaughey, for the loss of a "spark." In a bit of a surprise, Pinkett Smith as a strip club owner and Donald Glover as a singer-stripper step into the "most interesting parts" of the film, while Channing Tatum "doesn't seem very interested in being here at all."
• Andrew O'Hehir at Salon admits "this isn't a perfect movie, but it might be the perfect summer movie for 2015." He labels it "surprisingly delicious" and "a joyous, candy-colored, penis-flavored ode to liberation." There are boring patches, but you also get a closer look at who these guys really are. A big surprise is "the movie's fascinating side trip into American race relations, which both plays with deep-seated stereotypes and circumnavigates them."

(More Channing Tatum stories.)