I went through a phase where I became a male revue connoisseur. In my defense, going to male revues is a great way to see a lot of hot women dressed up for a night out, drunk and having a great time. I developed a hierarchy of male revue quality, from least to best: Thunder from Down Under, Chippendales, and Magic Mike in Vegas.
The thing about Thunder and Chipp is that these aren’t really interesting shows at all, period. A bunch of beefcakes wear costumes and take their shirts off and dispassionately thrust. They can’t really dance. (Bear in mind this opinion is from around 2017 and may no longer reflect reality.) It’s pretty well sexless, all things considered. At least Magic Mike has a narrative, the guys can dance, and there’s some excitement to it.
If I were to place the revue in The Merry Gentleman in those rankings, I’d put it dead last. The dudes barely dance, much like Thunder, but there are fewer of them, and they seem to be having even less fun. Or am I having no fun because I’m not drunk among a bunch of hot middle aged women?
There’s never any sense of fun in this, period. The romance is also not very romancey. The male lead is kinda wounded because…his girl left him to go back to the city. And the female lead wants to maybe…go back to the city. He is SO HURT and BETRAYED. She chooses to stay so he won’t be all hurt. That’s…kind of the whole thing.
It feels like it was written by someone who doesn’t actually understand how romances work. It’s not really enough for two ostensibly attractive people to coexist until they decide to Be Together. Not all conflicts are created equally. This genuinely would have benefited from being a lot more tropey and formulaic!
I won’t be revisiting this one on future Christmases. If I want to be bored watching shirtless men, I can just swipe TikTok for a few hours. At least they have some energy.
