Apart from a few naked male torsos, viewers get to see little in “Magic Mike 3”. Director Steven Soderbergh has now explained why the lack of nudity is an advantage for the film.

After Steven Soderbergh took over the direction of “Magic Mike” and was responsible for the camera work on the direct successor “Magic Mike XXL”, the grand finale with “Magic Mike – The Last Dance” as director was completely in his hands again. As expected, the main character is Channing Tatum (“The Lost City”), who is known to never mind taking his shirt off. This is not surprising when it comes to muscles.

Nevertheless, “Magic Mike 3” is probably the most harmless part of the franchise in terms of nudity, although “Magic Mike” and “Magic Mike XXL” don’t come into play with explicit genital shots or bare breasts. Talking to the Rolling stone Soderbergh has now explained why part 3 deliberately avoided nudity (or even more bare skin):

“For me it’s about sexiness. It’s not about the sex itself or whether the movie is explicit. There’s no nudity in ‘Out Of Sight’. There’s no nudity in ‘Magic Mike – The Last Dance’. There’s not once to confess a thong And yet it was our desire to make a sexy movie. […] What is sexy is intimacy and sincere emotion. Something that feels alive and electric and can be vulnerable. That can be sexy.”

Was the original protagonist kicked out of ‘Magic Mike 3’ because of an argument with Channing Tatum over Will Smith?

Steven Soderbergh once again refers to the emotional maturity of his 1998 “Out Of Sight”, which he now wanted to give to “Magic Mike – The Last Dance”. In conversation with Rolling Stone, the filmmaker continues: “You let someone into your heart – and that’s scary. You can get hurt.” And that is exactly what is also the subject of “Magic Mike 3” this time. The search and find of Mike and Maxandra (Salma Hayek). Whether it has resulted in a good film is doubtful.

While “Magic Mike 3” gets a solid 3 stars out of a possible 5 in the official FILMSTARTS review, the stripper trilogy finale is properly put through the wringer in the accompanying big-screen love edition of the FILMSTARTS podcast. You can hear what moderator Sebastian and FILMSTARTS editors Pascal and Stefan were bothering about “Magic Mike 3” here: