Dir: Michael Patrick King, 2010
I'll tell y'all right now that the most terrifying scene in this movie has Liza Minelli belting out Beyonce's "Single Ladies". (Cabaret was almost 40 years ago and Ms. Minnelli does in no way still got it.)
Carrie Bradshaw and her gal pals — Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda — are back for another round of puns, relationship worries and impossible shoes. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) fears she's fallen into a takeout-on-the-couch and TV-in-bed rut with Mr. Big (Chris Noth); Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is sick of sacrificing time with her family for her career; Charlotte's got a nature-gifted nanny who doesn't wear a bra; Samantha is trying to rewind her body to pre-menopause. So, what's a gaggle of deluded middle aged women to do, but fly off to Abu Dhabi?
This movie is awful. Please understand that I was a fan of the show, thought the first movie wasn't so bad and was really looking forward to this installment. But everything that made the rest of these women's sexcapades entertaining — refreshing candor, interesting scenarios, real humor — is missing from this movie. Replaced with numbing plot points, lazy acting and over a dozen painfully unfunny scenes.
And the puns are even more atrocious than ever. Some will say that "Lawrence of my la---" (woman-part-that-rhymes-with-Arabia) is the worst offender, but I argue that "interfriention" takes the cheesecake (ahem, I couldn't resist).
Oh, and it's ugly. The clothes are hideous and tacky. The extravagant hotel they stay in is gaudy beyond words. The colors, the makeup, the lighting all serve to highlight the women's worst features. And do not get me started on Carrie's hair, which has the poor woman looking like she's been on the losing end of a fight with a socket a few times during the movie.
The characters, who never were the deepest of oceans, are now shallower than a coat of shellack. Their redeeming qualities are gone, leaving more neuroses and self-induced melodrama than anyone should be expected to endure when hitting the cinema for a little fun and frivolity. These women have officially become caricatures, leaving no trace of anything admirable.
Maybe I should applaud writer-director Michael Patrick King for keeping the gender role reversal theme, which the show established when Carrie & Co. decided to "have sex like men" in the very first episode, alive. No, I'm not talking about the fact that Carrie wears a tux as the Best Man at Stanford and Anthony's swan-filled Connecticut wedding. I'm talking about the fact that in this movie it's the women, not the men, who have annoying midlife crises. The results are just as pathetic as when men get the cliche candy apple sports cars or the 20-something mistresses.
The men here are steady and loving, while their wives seem allergic to their own happiness and good fortune. It's the men who (when present) add a sense of honesty and reality to the movie, while the women run around like headless mechanical chickens. In fact, Mr. Big is the only likable character who gets serious onscreen time in Sex and the City 2. He makes up for all his past wrongdoings by putting up with Carrie's shrewish ways. He is strong, charming, protective and warm.
All the while, Carrie nags, whines and chastises her handsome hubby for not wanting to go out and party like a 30-year-old. It's disconcerting how demanding she is and how incapable of curing her own boredom. Later, after kissing her married ex, she shrieks for an emergency pow-wow with the other clueless dames. These are the coping mechanisms of a well-adjusted 21st century heroine? Of a feminist realized? No, I say, more like the ravings of a tot in need of a nap. No longer cool, funny or deserving of any attention; Carrie Bradshaw is now just a sad disappointment.
By the way, there are two beautiful things in this movie: the sand dunes of the Moroccan desert and Penelope Cruz (not a thing, I know). Both are in it for too brief a time to raise the movie's aesthetic stock.
Do yourself a favor — fan or not — and skip it.
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