Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Magic Mike 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Thongs for the memories.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III May 18, 2024

This new 4K edition of Magic Mike, the 2012 beefcake melodrama popular enough to spawn two sequels, has a lot in common with several other recent WB catalog UHDs in recent months: it's not celebrating a significant anniversary, the existing Blu-ray was a decent effort, and thus very few fans were clamoring for an upgrade. (The lone exception is that Magic Mike is on the résumé of director Steven Soderbergh, who oversaw the recent 4K releases of Contagion and the Ocean's Trilogy, so I'd like to imagine he just crashed at WB's MPI facility for a couple of months.) Regardless, like the studio's other recent 4K reissues, Magic Mike makes use of a great new 2160p/HDR10 transfer and is tightly encoded on a triple-layered (100GB) disc, so what was once a good-looking Blu-ray is now a great-looking UHD.

For separate thoughts on Magic Mike, I invite you to peruse Kenneth Brown's coverage of the 2012 Blu-ray and Brian Orndorf's theatrical review, both of which are justifiably critical (to various degrees) of the film's plot and characters, as well as its tendency to favor style of substance. I agree to an extent but can still enjoy Magic Mike for its over-the-top tone and fundamental craftsmanship; neither are outstanding enough to consider it any more than a mid-tier entry in Soderbergh's dense and extremely varied back catalog, but there's a little more here than meets the eye.

Magic Mike 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: The screenshots on this page are sourced from Kenneth Brown's review of the earlier Blu-ray edition.

Kenneth Brown gave Warner Bros.' Blu-ray of Magic Mike (linked above) fairly solid marks more than a decade ago, praising the 1080p transfer's visual variations through its regular use of color filters -- a Soderbergh tradition, if ever there was one -- while pointing out its somewhat murky appearance by design and a few minor encoding anomalies, such as black crush. The overwhelmingly good news about WB's rock-solid new 2160p/HDR10 transfer (which, unlike Soderbergh's other films recently upgraded to UHD, is not advertised as being personally overseen by the director, although that could have been an oversight) is that it corrects all of the Blu-ray's minor setbacks, while similarly pushing all of its visual strengths to the absolute limit without compromising the film's original look.

Minor upgrades include overall fine detail and depth, both of which are clearly aided by the increased resolution and stronger black/contrast levels, which do double-duty by eliminating those previous instances of black crush and murky shadow detail. Truth be told, Magic Mike is still not the most visually dynamic film during the bulk of its running time, ultimately favoring a more smooth and dialed-down atmosphere while amping things up considerably during raucous performance scenes in the nightclub as well as other locations and exteriors where neon and similarly strong, stylized light sources do most of the driving. This manages to create a more pronounced visual contrast between key scenes yet one that doesn't feel inconsistent; what might have been slightly restricted due to format limitations can now breathe more freely, thanks largely in part to the firmly pronounced "ends of the spectrum" and also the UHD format's more efficient HEVC encoding. Unsurprisingly, putting less than 120 minutes of total content (bonus features included) on a triple-layer disc yields a sky-high bit rate and ultimately eliminates any real signs of compression artifacts.

Color is the real star of the show, here, not surprisingly, and it's similarly aided by the relatively tasteful (not a word I thought I'd be using in this review) level of its HDR10 grading, which is not Dolby Vision compatible in keeping with the studio's usual habits. It's nonetheless a quality effort that lightly punches up color intensity and variation to a notable but not distracting degree, again keeping what looks to be the intended color timing when compared to earlier direct screenshots of WB's older Blu-ray edition. I mean, I doubt that the film's target audience would've cared about any minor color timing changes given the subject matter, but it's at least nice to know that this new transfer seems to play it straight. Overall, I have no complaints at all about Magic Mike's appearance on UHD, and I'd imagine more die-hard fans of the film will be inclined to agree. If all catalog releases looked this nice, we'd be in good shape.

Magic Mike 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Again as with previous recent WB 4K upgrades, despite the presence of what seems to be an identical DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix to the 2012 Blu-ray, I nonetheless found this to be a very effective and frequently attention-grabbing effort that shows no room for improvement aside from the possibility of a Dolby Atmos remix. Dialogue and foreground effects are well-balanced, of course, with occasional but well-appointed use of the rear channels as well as a fantastic presence for club music and other diegetic cues -- it's the kind of mix you just want to crank and hear what it sounds like at full blast, neighbors (or housemates) be damned. Within those boundaries, I've no choice but to rate it higher than the linked Blu-ray, whether or not it's the same effort as before. Simply put, it's an outstanding mix.

Also like those other recent 4K discs, the earlier foreign dub and subtitle options -- in this case, French and Spanish on both fronts -- have not been carried over from the Blu-ray, which seems like a fairly dumb oversight.

Magic Mike 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard 4K keepcase with recycled cover art; no slipcover, inserts, or Digital Copy are included. Oddly enough, only one of the three extras from the 2012 Blu-ray have been ported over, which means those hoping for a 4K version of the "Dance Play Mode" and "Extended Dance Sequences" will be sorely disappointed.

• Backstage on Magic Mike (6:42)

Magic Mike 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stephen Soderbergh's Magic Mike is the kind of movie that some might not even consider watching for its subject matter, but can still be enjoyed for the solid craftsmanship as well as its over-the-top tone and characters. With that said it's still fairly mid-tier work from the eclectic director, and I could think of at least a half-dozen of his films that should've earned a UHD upgrade before this one. However... this is a great looking (and sounding!) disc, although I can't imagine all but Magic Mike's biggest fans will bother taking the plunge at its current price point.