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'Sex and the City 2' review 2 (2 out of 5 stars)

When the girls leave the city, the movie becomes just plain stupid.

By Mike DiGiorgio | Source: MovieJungle.com | 05/27/2010 05:58AM


    In the first Sex and the City movie, the fabulous foursome spent a lot of time greeting each other with mad screams.  Samantha had moved away, so anytime she was reunited with her girls, they celebrated.  This was of course for the sake of SATC fans that hadn’t seen their girls either since the HBO series went off the air.  After an hour and a half, even after we’d seen plenty of Samantha, yet the girls kept screaming ridiculously at every mini-reunion with each other.
            Sex and the City the movie was a huge hit, so with the sequel just two years later, the girls kind of feel like they can do whatever they want.  They give the fans what they want in an over-the-top self-indulgent fashion (while wearing a lot of over-the-top self-indulgent fashions).
            Die-hards may be just fine with that.  This critic is not a die-hard Sex and the City fan, but I will confess – I’ve seen every episode of the TV series.  While I couldn’t relate to the Manolo Blahniks, I knew I was watching a well-written show.  The dynamics between these four friends and their romantic partners were funny and complex and had nice takes on modern relationships.
            Sex and the City 2 teases it might be like that, even as three of the four principals are now married and not on the dating scene.  It opens with a scene the die-hards will love – a wedding that is big, gaudy and faaaabulous.  Wooooooo!  
I thought to myself, OK, they’re getting that stuff out of the way.  I thought it would settle in with the women who have settled down. Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw (who resents being called Mrs. Carrie Preston) and Big don’t know how to relate to each other now that they’re a married couple.  She still wants to go out all the time; he wants to sit on the couch.  He buys her an entirely wrong anniversary gift.  Carrie’s frustrations are probably reflected in her new book title: “I Do, Do I?”
            Her girlfriends are also adjusting to changes in life.  Charlotte (Kristin Davis) wanted kids forever, and now has to deal with the terrible twos and the arrival of a hot nanny.  Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) wants to spend more time at home with her family and get away from a boss that doesn’t understand or respect women.  Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is dealing with the change of life with hormones, injections and creams – anything to make her not look “fifty-bleeping-two.”  (Kudos to Cattrall for her willingness to do that.  To be blunt, she looks good, but on the big screen, she doesn’t look like she used to.  She and Samantha deal with menopause with honesty and good humor, much as when Samantha dealt with breast cancer on the series).
            Returning director/writer Michael Patrick King has all the elements in place for a good, extended episode of Sex and the City.
            Then after about 45 minutes, the girls leave the city. Then the movie becomes just plain stupid.
           Samantha’s public relations job has her sent to Abu Dhabi to close a deal and stay in an impossibly glamorous resort.  In a convenient and contrived plot, she’s allowed to take her three best friends with her.  So they’re off on an exotic vacation that isn’t possibly relatable to a single person in the audience.  The fans have always fantasized they could be Carrie, and while maybe they couldn’t exactly, they could get a dress like hers, get together with her girlfriends and maybe relate to her a bit.  But Abu Dhabi?  A trip where they each get their own car and their own personal servant?  An endless supply of long flowing gowns?  Camel rides in the middle of nowhere (with cell phone service?)   
The supporting cast’s earlier roles end up becoming cameos as they’re hardly ever seen again.  One beloved member of the supporting cast does make it to Abu Dhabi in a coincidence that just isn’t reasonable (oh, why am I being secretive?  The fans all know it’s Aidan and are falling over themselves about it). By leaving their loved ones behind for as long as they do, the girls imply they don’t need to deal with their problems when they can just get away from them.
            The Abu Dhabi sequence is incredibly long and incredibly full of itself.  It reaches its nadir when the Americans make spectacles of themselves singing karaoke, and later end up doing silly slapstick.  When the four peek their heads around a corner – one on top of each other— you realize they think they’re the Marx Brothers and not the cast of Sex and the City.  Their success lets them think they can do anything.  They are living out a fantasy just because they can.
Didn’t they learn from their first hiatus that we want them to be themselves?

Posted on: 09/03/2010 05:00AM
'Machete' review 2 (2.5/5). Essentially, it's blunt and often flat.
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Anders Wright


Posted On: 09/03/2010 04:55AM
'Machete' review (4/5). Hits most of the right notes.
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Eric Sloss


Posted on: 09/02/2010 04:12PM
'Mesrine: Killer Instinct' Review (5/5 stars) Vincent Cassel Gives the Performance of a Lifetime
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Steve Ramos


Posted On: 09/02/2010 09:44AM
'Going the Distance' review (3.5/5). You won’t be disappointed if you go the distance to the theater.
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Mike DiGiorgio


Posted on: 09/02/2010 09:26AM
'The American' review 2 (3.5/5). This is a brave performance by Clooney
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Eric Sloss


Posted On: 09/02/2010 09:18AM
'The American' review (2.5/5). What is actually missing is the thrill itself.
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Anders Wright


Posted on: 09/01/2010 12:52PM
'The American' Review (4/5 stars) George Clooney and Anton Corbijn make beautiful art together
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Steve Ramos


Posted On: 08/27/2010 11:28AM
'Takers' review (2/5 stars) Up-and-comer Idris Elba cannot save the film
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Steve Ramos


Posted on: 08/27/2010 02:07AM
'The Last Exorcism' review (2/5). Doesn’t deserve to be a hit or even be classified a horror film
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Eric Sloss


Posted On: 08/27/2010 02:03AM
'Takers' review (2/5). Riddled by too many worn out clichés
Source: MovieJungle.com
By: Eric Sloss



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