What if Tyler Perry Directed a Male Stripper Movie?

“Y’all seen Magic Mike, right?” Michael Jai White asks an audience of screaming women during the opening scene of CHOCOLATE CITY (2015). “Now we’re gonna add a little chocolate.” 

Consider that bit of dialog Chocolate City’s thesis statement. You’ll be reminded several more times throughout the course of the movie that this is supposed to be the Black Magic Mike. Writer-director Jean-Claude LaMarre even went so far as to name his movie’s protagonist Michael. It’s good to have goals.  

The story is pretty boiler plate. College student Michael McCoy (Robert Ri’chard) is trying to focus on academics, but he can’t ignore his family’s financial struggles. His mother Katherine’s hours have been cut at her job, and Michael’s part-time job flipping burgers at a local diner doesn’t even net him $150 a pay period. Not helping matters is Michael’s older brother, Chris (comedian DeRay Davis, quickly wearing out his welcome), who lives at home but doesn’t work. “You’re thirty and still living under my roof,” snaps Katherine (Vivica A. Fox, a long way down from Kill Bill but leagues above Cool Cat Saves the Kids). “Get a J-O-B! What’chu waitin’ on?”

“’Til I’m forty?” replies Chris, his first and only line of genuinely funny dialog. 

“Hey, weren’t you in Cool Cat Finds a Gun?”

A solution to the family’s financial woes comes in the muscular form of Princeton (White, phoning it in yet still too good for the movie), who sizes Michael up — in the men’s room of a strip club, no less — and hands him a business card, suggesting Michael contact him if he “ever thinks about making some paper.” Were this a different kind of movie I’d think Princeton was coming on to Michael, and that would be a movie I’d very much like to see. But this is a movie from the creator of the Pastor Jones films, so we just get a few lame gay panic jokes instead.

Michael Jai White literally phoning it in.

Michael, with Chris tagging along, pays Princeton a visit at the club he manages, the titular Chocolate City, discovering that — gasp! — it features male dancers, the brothers seemingly baffled by the very concept. Conveniently, it’s amateur night, and Michael, predictably, refuses the offer to get on stage, then just as predictably reconsiders. Before he performs the house DJ (a pointlessly cast Carmen Electra, but then, isn’t she always?) asks for a stage name. Unfortunately, she asks Chris, and hence Michael becomes Sexy Chocolate.  

And so a star is born. In no time Michael is taking home gym bags full of cash, paying off the family’s debts and buying himself a new Merc. Pretty impressive when you consider that the Chocolate City dancers seldom take off their pants, the ladies in the audience lucky if the dancers bare their asses. And you can just forget about seeing any dick in this movie.

This is as close as you get to seeing a cock in Chocolate City.

Robert Ri’chard tries to make the White Man’s
Overbite sexy.

Life as Sexy Chocolate does have its share of problems. Michael falls behind in his studies, specifically in his French class, the only class he’s ever shown attending (presumably so action movie never-was Xavier Declie has some screen time as Michael’s professor). His girlfriend Carmen (Imani Hakim, uncredited for some reason) is starting to ask questions, which he deflects with a lie about working with children. His God-fearing mother suspects he’s dealing drugs.

On top of all these pressures in his personal life, Michael has to deal with the resentment of Chocolate City’s one-time headliner, the aptly named Rude Boy (Tyson Beckford). While Rude Boy is an unpleasant character, I have to say I was in his corner. Michael’s young and cute, sure, but he isn’t all that. Adding an uneasy subtext to his stardom is that Michael is lighter than all the other dancers. In lieu of exploring this uncomfortable nuance, the movie chooses to have Rude Boy enlist a few guys to beat the shit out of Michael and steal his gym bag of money. 

At least Rude Boy knows why we watch male stripper movies.

It takes more than a beating to keep Sexy Chocolate off the stage, however. But then Carmen joins her friends DeeDee (Eurika Pratts, who should be informed she’s not as endearing as Rosie Perez when she talks like that) and some other chick for a night out at Chocolate City, on the exact same night Sexy Chocolate performs with his face covered by a gladiator helmet to insure a more dramatic/contrived unmasking. Rest assured, neither Michael inadvertently revealing his secret identity to his girlfriend nor his unsatisfying confrontation with Rude Boy is going to stand in the way of Chocolate City’s happily-ever-after. 

A puzzled Carmen watches her boyfriend Michael
fellate a soft-serve cone.

Chocolate City is nowhere near being a Black Magic Mike, coming off more like Magic Mike XXL if it were directed by Tyler Perry, only not quite that awesome. LaMarre employs Perry’s same approach to storytelling, mixing lurid subject matter, religion (LaMarre shoehorns his Pastor Jones character into the story), broad comedy, melodrama, racial stereotypes, and regressive sexual politics, and then throws a wet blanket over the whole thing. The movie is too tame to be titillating, too by-the-numbers to be engaging, too competent to be so-bad-it’s-good, and yet it somehow made enough money to justify a sequel.

Less Nudity, More Assholes

I don’t want to make generalizations, but I think the quality of a movie is automatically suspect when the writer and director is listed by their Instagram handle, as LaMarre is in the opening credits of CHOCOLATE CITY 2: VEGAS (a.k.a. Chocolate City: Vegas Strip, as it appears on Netflix; or Chocolate City: Vegas, as it’s listed on IMDb). Most of the principles reprise their roles in this 2017 sequel, which finds the Chocolate City nightclub struggling to keep its doors open (no reason is given, but I’d hazard a guess that it has something to do with their strippers not really stripping). Princeton’s financial troubles are compounded by his ailing father’s mounting medical bills. Foreclosure is imminent. In the face of all this adversity, Princeton does what any man would do: turn the whole mess over to Scary Spice.

Mel B. let’s the boys know they’re fucked.

Ernest Thomas is allowed one more moment
of dignity...

...before doing whatever this is, because comedy.

All is not lost, however. If the guys enter the upcoming National Male Exotic Competition in Las Vegas, they have a shot at winning a problem-solving — and highly improbable — $500,000. Securing sponsorship from Michael’s former employer, diner owner Mr. Williams (Ernest Thomas, his role expanded to the actor’s detriment), Sexy Chocolate & Co. head to Vegas, a city teeming with assholes.

After a run-in with some racist rivals (“Obama really got y’all believing anything is possible, huh?”), the Chocolate City guys discover that one of their former dancers, Pharaoh (Ginuwine), has become a celebrity exotic dancer in Vegas, even though his physique, undoubtedly the best in his bowling league, is not exactly jacked. Interestingly, Pharaoh’s troupe, the Hippz—which, because a poor font choice in the group’s advertising, I thought were the Nippz—includes the very same racist white guys who taunted the Chocolate City team earlier. Our protagonists aren’t all that concerned about Pharaoh gyrating with the Alt-Right, but they are seriously pissed that he stole their moves, which I can’t say looked all that unique. Now they have to re-choreograph their entire act.

But first they avail themselves of all a green screen Vegas has to offer. The next morning, hungover and still half asleep, they seek out the help of—I’m not making this up—Best Valentine (Mekhi Phifer), the “player who shows other players how it’s done” (i.e., he’s an arrogant asshole), who in turn and puts them in touch with former dancer Carlton Jones (Marc John Jeffries). Carlton isn’t as big of an asshole as Valentine, at least, and hearing Jefferies’ delivery of the line, “The women associate your sexual prowess with buuuulge and definition,” almost justifies the movie’s existence.

And the award for Best Cinematography goes to...

Michael/Sexy Chocolate squanders a night in Green Screen Vegas.

Rattling around elsewhere in the movie, Pastor Jones’ chubby son wants to pursue a career in exotic dancing; Michael’s ex-girlfriend Carmen, now an insufferable bitch, heads to Las Vegas, accompanied by DeeDee, their gay friend Kevin, and some other chick, to become Sexy Chocolate’s manager now that his brother Chris is out of the picture; and Michael’s French professor goes to great lengths to ensure his failing pupil takes his “state exam” (in this movie’s universe, not even France values the French language as much as much as Michael’s home state, which turns out to be Georgia, the same place that put this crazy bitch on the national stage). With the exception of the pastor’s son’s ill-chosen career aspirations, these subplots have no purpose beyond giving actors from the first movie another paycheck and letting the audience know that, even though it looks like it’s set in Los Angeles, Chocolate City was set in Atlanta all along (but filmed in L.A.). 

Pharaoh stands amidst his Alt-Right dancers and proudly
displays his one-pack.

Much of Chocolate City 2 is padded with footage of that male exotic dancing competition, which achieves the rare feat of making scenes of hunky men suggestively undulating boring. We already know who will win, anyway, so why stay awake until the end? There’s certainly no reason to start watching Chocolate City 2. Its predecessor, while not an example of masterful filmmaking, at least showed some technical proficiency. Chocolate City 2 is worse in every way, and on top of all that it has even less nudity. Clearly, @JeanClaudeLaMarre needs to stick to his Pastor Jones franchise and stop trying to make inspirational sexploitation a thing. 

One of only two scenes of gratuitous nudity in Chocolate
City 2: Vegas, a movie allegedly about male strippers.

I’m suddenly in the mood for kielbasa.

The Chocolate City saga didn’t end with this shitty sequel, however. LaMarre went on to executive produce Vivica’s Black Magic, a reality show in which, per IMDb, “[r]enowned actress and icon Vivica A. Fox starts on a new project: creating the first all-male exotic dance group.” (Really, the first one?) The show only lasted a season, ending with lawsuits and accusations of homophobia. LaMarre continues the Chocolate City franchise — sans Fox — with Chocolate City 3: Live Tour, in post-production as of this writing. I’m just going to stick with This One’s for the Ladies, thank you. At least those guys know what I want to see.

Pharaoh — but most likely not Ginuwine—flashes the crowd.

Oh, You'll Welcome Sudden Death, All Right

The poster fairly represents
the movie’s quality.

The 1994 version of The Fantastic Four, produced by Roger Corman, is notorious for two things: being terrible (though worse was yet to come) and being made not as a theatrical release but to ensure the rights to the property didn’t revert to Marvel. I have read nothing that suggests WELCOME TO SUDDEN DEATH was made for similar reasons, yet I couldn’t help but think the sole reason this unasked-for sequel exists is as a fuck you to whatever studio was hoping to buy the rights, cheap.

Universal Studios couldn’t even be bothered to supply an actual synopsis for Welcome to Sudden Death’s IMDb page:

Sequel to the 1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick.

Both the original and its sequel can essentially be summed up as Die Hard in a sports arena, but I guess supplying that much detail was more time than Universal wanted to waste on this thing. They couldn’t even be bothered to put a “the” in front of “sequel,” they had so few fucks to give. And why should they give them, when clearly the makers of the movie didn’t give any.

Sudden Death, the aforementioned “1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick,” didn’t exactly set box office records. In fact, a planned 1997 sequel was scrapped because the movie under-performed. Were our memories not being jogged occasionally when Sudden Death popped up on streaming services (and on cable before that), the movie would likely have been forgotten. But then, 25 goddamn years later, Universal decided that what the world—or at least Netflix subscribers—needed was a Sudden Death sequel.

This time around, instead an ex-fireman with PTSD we get an ex-soldier with PTSD, and instead of JCVD, who turned 60 on October 18, we get the youthful Michael Jai White, who turns 53 on November 10. Sudden Death took place during a hockey game, making it the original Die Hard on Ice. Welcome to Sudden Death takes place during a basketball game. The biggest difference between the two movies, however, is Sudden Death, while no action classic, is a perfectly enjoyable way to kill a Sunday afternoon. Welcome to Sudden Death is a total piece of shit.

The movie is deceptive in its opening, a flashback to Jesse’s (White) soldiering days. He and his platoon have been taken captive in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, being tortured with electric cables. “Tell me American, where are they?” snarls the interrogator, zapping White’s rippling abs with electric cables.

“Gokis,” gasps Jesse to the perplexed torturer. “Go…kiss…my ass.”

Michael Jai White flashes back to
a better action sequence.

Ass-kicking and explosions ensue. Then Jesse wakes up. The gritty generic action movie we started watching was all a dream, and now Jesse (and the audience) must face a far more troubling reality: he now lives in a syndicated sit-com. His wife (Sagine Sémajuste) gently nags him about not spending enough time with the kids, but after meeting their children—Mara (Nakai Takawira), a sassy 10-year-old and Ryan (Lyric Justice), her surly older brother—it’s clear what Jesse’s wife means is he better get these little fuckers out of her hair soon or she’s going to pack them into the minivan and drive into the nearest river. Instead of running out the door, Jesse instead presents his obnoxious children with VIP passes to the big game between the Phoenix Falcons and I don’t care. It’s Take Your Plot Contrivances to Work Day!

Lyric Justice and Nakai Takawira’s performances will make
you reconsider your opinions about Will Smith’s kids

The kids may have VIP passes, but they’re eclipsed by the game’s real guests of honor: the city’s hand-wringing mayor, the state’s smarmy governor, and, most exciting of all, apparently, is billionaire businesswoman Diana Smart (Sabryn Rock). Diana is escorted by her her rapper boyfriend Milli, short for Millions (sorry if you just vomited in your own mouth), a pairing that’s about as believable as Oprah hooking up with Coolio. Just as perplexing is why a billionaire would choose to dress like an Ikea bedding display.

A stylish red pillowcase pairs
nicely with a cream bed skirt.

Also attending the game is a team of crooks, led by Jobe (Michael Eklund, whose scenery chewing never quite pays off). Arriving under the guise of tech support, Jobe and his team quickly change into security staff uniforms and dispatch all the real security guards —all except you-know-who. 

Jobe (Michael Eklund) doesn’t care who you are.

Jobe takes Diana, Milli, the governor and the mayor hostage in their luxury skybox. When the governor huffs, “Don’t you know who I am?” Jobe kills him, just to show he means business. While I understand the impulse—who among us hasn’t wanted to shoot someone who utters the sentence, Don’t you know who I am?—killing the gov was a tactical error. I mean, cops don’t just let such a thing go, even if the governor was a doofus.

Jobe’s primary motives are revenge and greed. Diana was responsible for getting him fired when they worked together at the CIA, and now he wants Diana to transfer $1 billion to him and do so within one hour. When Diana protests the time frame, one of Jobe’s tech-savvy accomplices, a prissy woman named Psi (Stephanie Sy—not the PBS news anchor, I’m sad to say), helpfully hands Diana a smart phone and tells her to enter her bank account number, routing number and PIN. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Diana doesn’t have an appropriately sarcastic response to this request, so let’s borrow one from a much better movie:

Meanwhile, Mara witnesses some of Jobe’s gang killing a guy in a restroom and is captured, which can happen when you just fucking stand there. Lucky for her, one of the bad guys draws the line at killing kids (darn the luck) so instead she’s taken up to the skybox for Jobe to deal with. Jesse discovers her missing and goes looking for her. He almost finds her, too, until one of Jobe’s goons gets in the way. Michael Jai White beats said goon to death, a scene that might have been more satisfying had there not been some bargain-bin rap music blaring on the soundtrack.

Gary Owen’s portrayal of Gus calls into question
his success in stand-up comedy.

Jesse teams up with the janitor, Gus (Gary Owen), for what I think is supposed to be the buddy comedy portion of the movie, minus the comedy. “This is like some John McClane shit!” Gus exclaims, because nothing helps a shitty movie more than referencing a much better one. Gus and Jesse happen upon another member of Jobe’s obnoxious gang, Gamma (Gillian White), planting a bomb, because Jobe’s plan involves bombing all the exits. When she’s unable to talk her way out of her predicament, Gamma pulls a gun, resulting more fisticuffs and bland rap music. She gets shot in the stomach in the process, but gets the gun thanks to Gus’s clumsiness. Rather than shoot the two guys, however, she shoots herself in the head for the sole reason of providing Gus with the opportunity to shout: “Yo, that is one crazy bitch!” To the movie’s credit, practical effects are used for the gore, not CGI blood spatter. 

Who would’ve guessed this guy would
turn out to be a criminal?

Moving right along, Jesse and Gus disarm most of the bombs (Gus is on his own for the last one, because hilarity), Jesse discovers his boss was in on Jobe’s scheme (time for more ass-kicking!), and then learns Jobe now has Mara. My opinion of this movie would improve substantially if Jesse said to Jobe, “Hold on, I’ll bring you my son, too,” but this isn’t the type of movie to subvert expectations. Anyway, more ass kicking, a final confrontation with Jobe, Mara in peril, blah blah blah… Jesse saves the day.

Michael Jai White in one of Welcome to Sudden
Death’s better fight scenes.

What Michael Jai White probably imagines doing to his agent.

Welcome to Sudden Death answers the question: What if the Disney Channel produced R-rated action schlock? Director Dallas Jackson, also credited with the screenplay along with Sudden Death’s original writer Gene Quintaro, delivers a movie that is almost aggressively devoid of any wit, personality or style. Instead, we get cliched dialogue (including the chestnuts “You had one job!” and “That’s above my pay grade”), cheap-at-half-price production values, and performances barely worthy of an episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (though Owen’s community theater-level acting added a humorous flare to his f-bombs). There’s only so much Michael Jai White can do, and he does the bare minimum here. And yet the movie has the audacity to tease a sequel. I hope for White’s sake he leaves that project to sentient Naugahyde bean bag Steven Segal should it ever materialize.

Corman’s version of The Fantastic Four wasn’t made for public consumption, but it still managed some so-bad-it’s-good charm. Feel free to check it out for yourself. It’ll be a better use of your time than watching the stillborn Welcome to Sudden Death.

Michael Eklund welcomes sudden death.