Magic Mike XXL

After taking audiences by surprise with Magic Mike, Channing Tatum returns as the Florida stripper with aspirations, here living down to some of the expectations that the original film defied. Steven Soderbergh gives up the directing reins to his sometime assistant director Gregory Jacobs but, because Mike had decided to grow up and left the club scene behind in the first film, Jacobs has nowhere to go with the story except backwards. Putting Mike on the road with the other "Kings of Tampa" (minus Matthew McConaughey) only gives the impression of movement, and the initial banter between the lads - some of which is actually quite endearing and funny - eventually gives way to cheesy scenes designed to titillate rather than tickle the funny bone. The finale, centred on a stripping competition in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is especially disappointing and the plot as a whole has all the elegance and revelatory power of pants being dropped.