One could argue that we are currently living through a golden age of unnecessary sequels. It seems that there’s a constant effort to revive and reinvigorate IP of varying degrees of dustiness; why make something new if you can make something familiar that people have already told you that they like?

Of course, that leaves us in a world where we’re surrounded by not just the ongoing blockbuster franchises that are the box office’s foundation, but also movies that continue stories that audiences believed had reached their conclusion (note: for the most part, audiences were fine with that).

And so we get something like “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” the third installment in the adventures of Channing Tatum’s charming and unlucky male stripper. Did we need another “Magic Mike”? Almost certainly not – especially nearly a decade after 2015’s better-than-it-needed-to-be sequel “Magic Mike XXL.” But hey – Steven Soderbergh came back (he directed the first film) and he’s always had a sort of quasi-muse thing happening with Tatum. Maybe it’d work?

Reader, it did not.

Look, the choreography is great – it’s always great in these movies – but that isn’t enough to carry the day. Particularly when you’re dealing with a confusing and occasionally bordering on nonsensical narrative. Soderbergh knows how to make this stuff look good – and there are stretches when this movie looks phenomenal – but when the story unravels upon even a cursory examination, it isn’t enough, despite the efforts of the director and his stars.