That focus on profit offers a telling contrast to our boys, who are less concerned with success and more with being happy their journey to a stripping convention is a last hurrah more than a career move.

It’s a formula as rock hard as the abs on display, with the cast all returning, except for Matthew McConaughey and Alex Pettyfer – whose characters have fled to pursue their own money-making enterprise. How? By reuniting with the gang and going on a road trip. Where previously, Channing’s Mike was an unhappy dancer trying to give meaning to his life by making furniture, here, he’s an unhappy furniture maker using his dancing to find meaning. But while there’s a lot of Channing all over this Tatum, there’s also a new appreciation of what that entails. On the surface, that seems to be it a shallow sequel cashing in on that commercial prospect. Magic Mike XXL, on the other hand, is a film about male stripping. The marketing has nothing to do with the makers of the film, of course, but a similar change has happened there too: Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike was a heartfelt character study of men who happened to be strippers. Compared to the original’s poster crying “HELLO GIRLS”, though, there’s a shift that’s taken place in its understanding of gender and sexuality. Magic Mike XXL continued the first film’s brand of in-your-face marketing with a hashtag that promised no end of fun.

Watch Magic Mike XXL online in the UK: Amazon Prime / Apple TV (iTunes) / TalkTalk TV / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / Rakuten TV / Google Play

Where to stream magic mike xxl