WARNING: SPOILERS

Did you like that, ladies? Was it good for you? Well, just so you know, my name is Erik, and I'm your movie reviewer today. Ladies, do you mind if I refer to y'all as queens? Because every last one of you out there is a queen, and don't you ever forget it. Now ... are you ready to be disappointed? Are you ready to be bored out of your skull ? Are you ready to meet that special kind of beast that makes you feel trapped and lost and hopeless? That makes you check your cellphone every five minutes for something, god, something ELSE? Then get yourself ready for “Magic Mike! X! X! L!”

Seriously. This movie is a mix of indie films and exploitation flicks but the duller aspects of each. It’s hard bodies performing simulated sex acts (mostly on stage, but also in workshops and convenience stores) interrupted by conversations so boring they seem improvised by actors with no training whatsoever in improv.

And it wasn't just me. I didn’t see the first movie, but Patricia did, and liked it. This one, not so much. She missed Matthew McConaughey. She wanted less talk and more dancing. And by dancing, she means dancing, not dudes giving lap dances.

The first dance we see is actually good. It’s three years later, and Magic Mike (Channing Tatum) runs a small, struggling carpentry business. He’s in his workshop late one night when a song comes on, and he busts a move. Several moves. It’s impressive. His whole body is as slippery as a wet bar of soap. It's like Yuen Biao combined with John Travolta. So he decides to join the old gang—Ken, Tito, Tarzan, and Big Dick Richie—for one last fling: a roadtrip to a stripper convention in Atlanta.

Then the conversations begin. Dear god. You know how in “Star Trek” movies all the minor players have to have their scene? Here's one with Chekov, Sulu, Uhura; here's Trois, Dr. Crusher, Geordi, Worf? Well, the road trip is like that. Everyone has to have their heart-to-heart, their makeup chat, their bromance, with Mike. They quote Oprah, meditate, admit their failings. They come clean. Here's Mike (I think) to Ken (I think):

If there's anybody that was jealous, it was me. Every time I would come
over to your apartment... remember? I'd put on your Tide commercial. That shit was dope.

They also decide to abandon the old stale numbers (fireman, cop) for something new and exciting: Just being themselves: Male entertainers, bro. They’re celebrating this decision when Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias) crashes the van, leaving them without an MC or transportation. 

Ah, but Mike has a friend nearby! OK, an ex: Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith), who now runs a swanky, exclusive stripclub for wealthy Georgian ladies, which seems just a G-string away from being a brothel. She’s a little pissed off at the Double-M for ditching her way back when, so she strings him along, makes him dance, makes all the boys dance, and then says no to being their MC anyway. But she loans them her car and driver, Andre (Donald Glover), who’s a rapper and self-important. He carries with him a quiet assuredness that is more annoying for being quiet. Not sure how that works. 

Where does he drive them? Some mansion. Why do they go there? I forget. Who’s there? More wealthy, attractive older women, including Nancy (Andie MacDowell), whose daughter—and here’s the thing—just happens to be the hot chick Mike met on the beach a few days earlier: Zoe (Amber Heard). So is it a giant coincidence they wind up at Nancy’s mansion where Zoe also lives? If so, that's one gigantic mother of a coincidence.

Anyway, Elizabeth Banks, with a way-too-thick Georgian accent, shows up as the stripper-convention gatekeeper, but it’s Rome to the 11th-hour rescue. She shows up, gets the boys in, MCs for them (parodied above), and they all do their new, non-fireman routines, most of which are various forms of simulated sex acts. Then, in the afterglow, they watch fireworks. Then mercy.