Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike made waves this past summer with its promotional campaign that highlighted the movie’s biggest draw — male strippers. The previews were full of men dancing and ladies screaming, so anyone who went to the movie was expecting a rollicking good time, almost like a night out at the club without the guilt of actually going to a male stripper revue. Heck, the women at the advance screening I attended were ready to throw dollar bills at the screen, but a curious thing happened about midway through the movie: everyone realized that it wasn’t just about the fun-loving life of a male stripper, and by the end, you actually felt more icky after seeing the movie than you would have had you actually gone to a club.

The reason is because of a pesky little thing called a plot. Yes, Magic Mike actually has a story, and it’s not really all that pleasant. In fact, you come away really disliking quite a few of the characters who seemed so jovial at the start, particularly Alex Pettyfer’s The Kid (as Mike calls him) and Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas, who turns into a real slimeball by the end of the movie (and his incessant “alright alright alright” really becomes grating after the tenth time). The Kid, aka Adam, gets taken into the world of the male stripper by Mike when he’s at his lowest point, becomes a favorite with the clientele, gets himself into trouble by not following Mike’s rules, totally screws Mike out of his dream, and leaves him without so much as a thanks for bailing his ass out. Yuck.

Dallas also screws Mike out of the percentage of the business he’d worked so hard to help build after the deal to move the show from Tampa to Miami becomes a reality, so no matter how down-homey he appears at the beginning, Dallas is just another unlikable jerk too. The other guys barely register, but even Matt Bomer’s character comes off as a bit of a sleaze when we see him at a party at Dallas’ home. The only person who has any redeeming qualities by the end is Mike … and this being based on Tatum’s own experience as a male stripper, it’s no surprise he’s the only good guy left as the credits roll.

So, with the recent home video release of the film, is it really worth picking up a copy if you’ve already seen it and been disappointed by the advertising bait and switch? I’ll let you decide. The film is available in a few different configurations, and the folks at Warner Brothers have provided CliqueClack with the Blu-ray/DVD Combo for review. The DVD is pretty bare bones, with the film and a short making of as the only bonus item. Audio options include English (5.1 and 2.0 options), French and Spanish. Subtitle options are English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish. The film looks as good as it can on DVD.

The Blu-ray looks and sounds spectacular, preserving Soderbergh’s unique color palette that helps get you into the feeling of a scene, from the golden sunlight of the beach to the electric blues of the strip club. It all looks as vibrant as it did on the big screen. For a Blu-ray release, however, the extras a quite slim. You get the same “making of” piece that’s on the DVD which runs about seven minutes total, and briefly covers the choreography and costumes worn by the guys while they were dancing. Some of the behind-the-scenes footage is amusing, and we do get to hear from most of the cast about the experience. A sticker on the package touts the new, fully extended dance scenes and there are three included as a bonus, each features a different dance that was seen in the movie as part of a couple of the montage sequences. One dance features Joe Manganiello as a golden statue come to life, one has Matt Bomer as the living Ken doll, and the last is Adam Rodriguez as a man in uniform. Sorry, no extra Channing Tatum moves here.

The best feature on the Blu-ray has to be the Dance Play Mode, which allows you to watch all of the film’s dance scenes, including the montages but not the bonus dances, without having to sit through any of that pesky plot development. It really is the disk’s main selling point because now you really can enjoy the dancing and not have to feel bad about any of the guys by the time it’s all over. And really, if you’re going to watch Magic Mike, that’s the only reason to do so, right?

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