Chan­ning Tatum gyrates back into our hearts in the trail­er for Mag­ic Mike’s Last Dance

Between the per­sist­ing pan­dem­ic, the hyper­speed death of Twit­ter, the annu­al return of the cold, and the con­stant polit­i­cal shake-ups that only seem to leave us worse off than before, glob­al morale is at an all-time low. We need a hero, some­one to inspire the pub­lic and remind us all of what makes life such a rich, spir­i­tu­al­ly nour­ish­ing jour­ney. Luck­i­ly, Warn­er Bros. has put their best man on the job — yes, Mag­ic Mike has returned.

Today brings the first trail­er for Mag­ic Mike’s Last Dance, the third and seem­ing­ly final install­ment of the male-strip­per saga last amend­ed with 2015’s superla­tive Mag­ic Mike XXL. With the first film’s direc­tor Steven Soder­bergh now back at the helm, the mul­ti-part med­i­ta­tion on cap­i­tal, per­for­mance, plea­sure, and gen­der can be com­plet­ed at long last. Also, there will be abs.

The spot below finds Chan­ning Tatum​‘s dancer extra­or­di­naire Mike on his own, his cohort of lov­able lunkheads — Joe Manganiello’s well-hung Richie, Gabriel Igle­sias’ cut-up Tobias, the gang — nowhere to be found. He’s instead gone solo to pur­sue Salma Hayek over­seas to Lon­don, where she’s giv­ing him one last shot, both at love as well as the per­fect stage show with an all-new cast of gyra­tion experts.

From the looks of it, Soder­bergh has embraced this unlike­ly franchise’s roots in the clas­sic musi­cal film to a greater extent than ever, one glimpse of a dance num­ber on a dou­ble-deck­er bus sug­gest­ing anoth­er quo­tid­i­an show­stop­per in the vein of the immor­tal ​“I Want It That Way” con­ve­nience store set piece. If Tatum feels that the con­nec­tion to his idol Gene Kel­ly has not yet been ful­ly cement­ed, tak­ing to the UK for his An Amer­i­can in Paris could very well do the trick.

The film will arrive just in time for Valentine’s Day, restor­ing desire and romance to a world benumbed by months of cru­el win­ter. For are we not all of us just bach­e­lors look­ing for a part­ner, some­one who knows how to ride with­out even falling off? Bless­ings be.

Mag­ic Mike’s Last Dance comes to cin­e­mas in the UK and US on 10 Feb­ru­ary, 2023.