My friends and I loved it! We were grinning from ear to ear pretty much the whole time. It was hilarious and hot and just a ton of fun. It's surprisingly a great movie and story and very well-made. A much better film than one might expect.

The cast all did a great job. Tatum, Pettyfer, McConaughey, and a surprisingly great turn from Cody Horn. I am not sure I've seen her in anything else but she was really impressive.

This movie is such a blast. I'd see it again, and I'm willing to bet many in my audience would as well. It even received applause at the end.

9/10 (A-)

Honestly didn't see that coming.

I didn't think it would be as good as it was though.

It's the best thing Soderbergh has made since King of the Hill

Don't let the fact that his movies generally suck distract you from my central point: this movie is excellent

Other than copious amounts of man-flesh, what elevates this one above the rest of his work?

Review: http://www.worldofkj.com/article.php?i=767

Wow, somebody here rated this an "F" yesterday, no doubt without seeing it. What a surprise. I wish we could see who rated movies and what they rated it .

I'm sure it was first letter A, other letters L-G-R-E-N.

I'm not going to "review" this like a traditional movie, other than to say the relatively straightforward nature of the story is elevated by Steven Soderbergh's expert direction. The cast is excellent all around: Channing Tatum has never been this relaxed and carefree (unsurprisingly), Matthew McConaughey gives his most memorable performance ever, Alex Pettyfer makes a fine ingenue, and Cody Horn delivers a strangely natural, unaffected performance (the movie did need more Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello than it had).

but oh yeah there were COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF HOT MEN NAKED AND STRIPPING. duh.

B+ for the movie. A for the objectification.

Ugh, this 100%.

I loved this to pieces. Decidedly not mainstream, although the surface is, it's pure Soderbergh throughout. The lensing, the pacing, the editing.

McConaughey was definitely good but I've been reading Oscar talk that is just, no. He has one big scene but (the face off with Mike) nothing else I would consider Oscar-worthy. Still great, mind you.

Loved Cody Horn, a lot. She comes off natural and fits in with Soderbergh's style and her chemistry with Tatum (who was superb here) was really spot on.

What they do with Pettyfer's The Kid was a real surprise and I loved that hey, he was a dickwad who just needed a chance to shine as a dickwad lol.

I was sad that Bomer had next to nothing to do but at least he showed his glorious ass.

Yep. Saw the movie again today. I loved her in it. I'd say it's currently one of my favorite supporting female performances of the year. I'm sure it won't still be there by year's end, but she really was very charming and natural.

I just liked her underbite, her under the radar attractiveness and that through all of this they never even kissed. It ended pretty much perfectly.

I cannot at all believe there's so much hatred for her and her performance in MM. Check out her IMDB board. It's sickening. I hope she will be great in End of Watch and make everyone eat their words. Can't wait to see her in that movie.

Anyway, I thought the ending was great. But a lot of people seem to have hated it. But you know mainstream audiences.

They probably thought he should have ended up with Olivia Munn.

The "romance" between Mike and Brooke was perfect. It felt like an authentic relationship that developed over time (I mean, they didn't kiss until the last frame of the movie) rather than an overwritten Hollywood thing.

I thought Cody Horn was great too. I'm not sure she's the most emotive or expressive actress but that actually worked tremendously in her favor here...she seemed very natural and loose rather than a super theatrical and professionally trained actress.

Really enjoyed this. I'm not surprised by how many people I know who didn't like it though, they were expecting something else, which is understandable considering the marketing.

See, that's weird to me though. I don't think the ads were terribly misleading or anything. It should have offered enough of what they were expecting for them to be satisfied. It's just that there was more to it than that.

It was good. but I wish they would have acknowledged gay audience in some way.

I don't know, I thought it was a bit knowingly homoerotic at times myself. So did this reviewer:

Horrible. No story, overt homoeroticism, and the death-knell for McConaughey. Is this the same director who did the fabulous HAYWIRE?
- Victoria Alexander, Film Festival Today

There is no room for an overt, nuanced gay romance in this movie. If one of the peripheral strippers were gay, it would just be a minor character detail, and people would then complain the film is pandering and treats homosexuality glibly.

I don't really think a nuanced gay romance is being asked for. I would have been fine with one of the strippers being gay without them focusing much on it or it being a big deal. I have to think though most would just be happy with the inclusion. But it is possible others would have complained that their relationship/exploits didn't get enough screen time. Still, I'm fine with the film as is. At least one of the strippers is gay in real life.

This is Mike and the Kid's story. None of the other strippers' sexual orientations or proclivities are of great importance.

Idk, it's juggling this odd duality of celebration and objective critique, of party scenes, bro culture, the world around male stripping. For the most part it works I suppose. Everyone seems fit for what they're doing, the thing has such a calm natural flow I couldn't help being off-put. I may not be able to exactly put my finger on it but there's some discord with the cool face and the picture underneath, it feels fake, plastic, constructed carefully to appear so natural but it's just not. The final half hour is an odd tonal shift and I really didn't like the character shift of Adam, but I can't really fault this almost documentary style project for trying to imitate the dark realities. The drug scandal felt really contrived to me though, to push Mike and Brooke together and Adam out of the picture all in one sweep. It frustrated me. The romance almost won me over but Tatum's speech did not. He doesn't have such a real, deep soul, not at all.
So yeah, I liked it mostly, it's solid, but everything has a cliche ring, I don't really want to see it again but can't call it bad.

I thought Adam's downward spiral rang true. Fit right in with his character.