Sex and the City 2

Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon in Sex and the City 2.

I was never a huge fan of Sex and the City but because of my wife I ended up seeing most of the episodes of the series. At least there was nudity and some humor to keep my attention and the stories were brief. I didn't really mind spending 30 minutes or so with the characters each week. Then came the movie, which for some unfathomable reason was nearly two and a half hours long, but with a story that deserved probably 45 minutes. Perhaps the only thing that first movie proved is that the expiration date had passed for these characters, but since fans of the show ensured that it made big bucks, a sequel was practically inevitable.

Inexplicably the second installment is nearly as long as the first one only I swear with even less plot. Where the first movie felt like four different episodes of the series shoved together, this one feels like one short episode stretched and stretched and stretched and stretched.

The incredibly complicated plot goes like this. Carrie and Big fight. Carrie and friends go to Abu Dhabi. Carrie runs into Aiden while there, they kiss, she feels guilty and then she returns to New York. Oh sure, other stuff happens, but they're only minor distractions. Miranda doesn't like her boss. Charlotte is feeling stressed about raising her kids (with the help of her sexy nanny). And Samantha wants to have sex, but needs a pharmacy to keep her from turning into the dried, wrinkled prune she would naturally be.

Maybe it's because they were younger, more attractive and because we weren't in the middle of a major recession but I remember these characters as having a smattering of charm about them. Now however they just seem irritatingly materialistic without a shred of humanity beyond their own consumerist instincts.

The foursome stay in a hotel room that costs $22,000 a night (which they don't have to pay for of course) and the movie spends 5 to 10 minutes just touring the hotel room. Each of the women gets their own personal butler and car while in Abu Dhabi. In fact, a good portion of the movie feels like an advertisement from the Abu Dhabi tourist board.

These are not people I would want to know or spend time with. Charlotte gets upset because her vintage dress gets ruined while making cupcakes. That's one of her major dilemmas. Later she complains about how hard it is to raise kids. Sure, raising kids is hard, but then she's got a nanny and all the money in the world. I mean, if getting a vintage $5,000 dress dirty is a worry, how about you don't wear it while you're baking cupcakes?

Granted I'm nowhere near this movie's intended demographic, but all that means is that I'm not going to forgive the sheer laziness involved in the filmmaking. Women and gay men, who are the target audience, might get some vicarious thrill out of watching this, but surely even they must realize how crap it all is.

Part of Carrie and Big's arguing is over the suggestion by Big that they spend two out of every five days apart. Given how badly Carrie has aged and how shallow she and her friends remain, I think she should just be grateful there's someone willing to spend that many days with her.

I hope the paychecks were worth it.

Wow, I had heard many stories about just how bad this movie was but I guess I had to see it for myself to believe it. It really stinks. As a gay man I will admit that seeing Liza Minnelli performing Beyonce’s "Single Ladies" did get me excited but that comes in the first 20 minutes of this 2 hour plus movie. It is all downhill from there.

I must say also that as a gay man I found the wedding between Stanford and Anthony to be about as believable as Liza’s wedding to David Guest. There is absolutely no romantic chemistry between these two Nelly queens. It was as if the writers said, "since we have two gay supporting characters lets have them get married". And that’s all the thought they put into it. Not surprisingly their relationship isn’t explored at all nor are they given a single kiss or moment of intimacy.

But to be honest these writers didn’t put much thought into anything about this movie. As Scott already wrote the dramatic conflicts are all ridiculously trivial and I agree that these four women have grown increasingly shallow and unlikable.

By the time the Muslim women were taking off their traditional garb to reveal designer gowns underneath and Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte were donning the robes and scarves as disguises I was half expecting Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour to pop out and perform a musical number. They should have called this terrible movie Very Little Sex & Hardly Any City. It sucks.
 

The best scene in this entire film.

I could not stand these characters in the first film and they are just as annoying here. These women should be lucky any man is interested in any of them. The most thankful should be Carrie. As the movie opens, Carrie and her friends go on and on about the gay wedding they are going to but when Big calls the gay wedding a “gay wedding,” she acts like he is being shallow and rude. She then proceeds to visit the bride and make gay jokes.

Later, Carrie buys Big a watch with a sentimental inscription, while he buys a television for the bedroom as they just spent a romantic night in a hotel watching It Happened One Night. They could not fall asleep in the hotel because Charlotte’s kids were screaming in one room and Samantha was having loud sex with a guy who, in real life would have only gone to bed with her if she had been the last woman at the bar.

Samantha’s role in the movie is to provide sex appeal but at 50 plus she is more of a joke than a cougar. The scene with her and the best man having sex was pathetic. First of all, the only skin we see is his spray on tan ass humping Samantha as they both compete in who can say “Yeah!” the loudest. Any two bit porn producer could have made that scene more sincere.

The only other sex is provided by a large breasted, braless Irish nanny. Her scenes consist of her running, jumping and getting her tank topped sprayed with water to be made see-through. Charlotte hired her but becomes concerned that her husband may be tempted to have an affair with her. So, of course, Charlotte decides the best thing to do is go on a vacation, leaving her husband alone with the buxom young babysitter. Likewise, Miranda just lost her job, so why not go on vacation without her husband and child. Miranda is upset that Big wants some space yet she decides to go away for weeks without him.

Nothing in this movie makes much sense. These four well passed middle aged women seem as lost in their lives as college students trying to decide on a major. In fact, these characters belong in college. Samantha would be the campus slut. Carrie would be the popular girl having an affair with her literature professor. Charlotte would be part of a conservative organization that promotes abstinence, while Miranda would be the over achiever who flirts with lesbianism. Holy crap, I just wrote a better plot than the idiot did who wrote this.

Okay, I get that this movie is aimed at women and homosexuals but it belittles women, portraying them as confused little twits. Then it decides that it is not the women’s faults but the men for being chauvinists. Wah wah wah. Cry me a river. A bunch of broads pursued lives only to be unhappy in them. How about they take some fucking responsibility for their own lives? They bitch about their husbands and their children. Who in the hell finds entertainment in watching women complain all of the time?

I actively hate these women. Carrie has an affair on Big. Yes a romantic kiss is an affair. Charlotte says that she does not want her husband to have an affair with the nanny because she does not want to lose the nanny. Miranda is just plain boring. Okay, Samantha can be entertaining in a porn film kind of way but any porn film would be better than this as Samantha only has sex once more and then it is the guy who again does the nude scene.

I am begging you Patrick and Scott, if, for some reason, another movie in this series is made, neither of you will see it. I am not sure I could stomach it. With all seriousness, I am having a hard time keeping my breakfast down as I watch Carrie tell Big about her fling as if she is the victim. The only good ending would be if the plane the girls were on was taken out in a terrorist attack. Anything less would be a sad ending. CRAP! They make it back to New York.