I just read Kyle Smith's review of "Sex and the City 2" in the New York Post. an excerpt:
The girls aren’t interested in anything except shopping, drinking and strutting through the desert in slo-mo, but what’s most appalling is that they vamp to “I Am Woman” in this land of sand Nazis. A veil “cuts back on the Botox bill!” chirps Samantha. Har. In Abu Dhabi husbands can legally beat their wives — and Carrie thinks this place is Oz, a cure for her boredom with a zillionaire husband who, she complains, eats too much takeout. (She won’t cook because she’s more “Coco Chanel than Coq au vin.” Waiter: one divorce, please).
Kyle, you are too kind. I saw this movie last night on a free pre-screening pass and at one point I actually exclaimed, "OH GOD" in disgust. This instinctive reaction to one of the lamest parts of the movie -- and there are so many; roughly 3 hours' worth -- was bookended by several uncontrollable, irritated sighs.
Some other observations from the worst movie I've seen in years:
There is no conflict. Whatsoever. Various irritations (Carrie forgets where she left her passport, Carrie accidentally kisses Aidan, Charlotte has a concern about her nanny, Miranda hates her job, Samantha's menopause hormones get confiscated at the airport and she loses her libido) are no big deal and get neatly tied up in the last 20 minutes of the movie.
The dialogue is atrocious. How man times, over how many years, can the same four women have the
same conversations? I've seen the entire TV series. I even halfway
enjoyed the first movie. But not even the phrase "beating a dead horse"
accurately describes the verbal vomit that is this movie. Erik and I likened it to a Disney film sans animation. It's a grownup movie written for children. It's worse than "The Phantom Menace."
Speaking of children's movies, the sound effects just plain pissed me off. You know that chimes sound in cartoons when someone has a brilliant idea? It occurs more than once in this movie. The first time I thought maybe the heat got to me and I was hearing things. No such luck.
This movie could be borderline offensive to Muslims. The jokes aren't funny at all. An entire five minutes is devoted to Carrie staring at two women at a cafe wearing veils. She quips about one woman's devotion to her religion, since she eats french fries one at a time, lifting the veil for each fry. My friends and I wondered if, at the end of the movie, we were supposed to embrace or fear the people of the Middle East and their culture.
The movie focuses around looks, and that's it. Shiny, beautiful, silken outfits that none of the rest of us could ever dream of affording. A beyond opulent Abu Dhabi hotel where the girls just happen to land a free vacation. A few camels. An awful camel toe joke.
"Sex and the City 2" is void of emotion. At least the first one made most of us tear up when Big flakes out on the wedding. The sequel is pure fluff, and might as well not even have dialogue. The only scene I enjoyed in the movie was the only realistic one: Charlotte and Miranda (incidentally, my two favorite SATC characters) sharing the struggles of motherhood, and the guilt from wanting to get away from their kids once in a while.
We agreed that the moral of the story, if there was a moral or even a story in "Sex and the City 2," is that having sh*tloads of money makes life a billion times more fun because your biggest problem becomes what to wear to dinner tonight.
I could not agree more. The movie was a bore. It was anticlimactic. It had be falling asleep in too many moments. It was a terrible way to end such an amazing story.
Posted by: Devilishdelish | May 26, 2010 at 07:05 PM
If you want depth, watch a documentary for crying out loud. It's as if you just bought a Vogue and are whinging because it's not National Geographic. What did you expect? We don't watch SATC because we want to relate to the characters through their struggles, we watch so that we can escape from ours and into their diamond studded couture draped fantasy life if only for roughly 3 hours.
Posted by: You're Incredibly Irritating | May 30, 2010 at 10:02 AM
It's entertainment for petes sake, we were not supposed to leave with a new revelation on Muslim states>>>> Verisimilitude: willing suspension of disbelief!
I loved the movie, cheered and sang along!
Posted by: AnnieO | May 31, 2010 at 12:40 PM
I agree that the movie was pure fluff, but I completely enjoyed it. Most of the series was pure fluff too, so I was cool with the movie having no actual point. I spotted several outfits that I would like to have, which is one of the primary goals for any SATC viewing for me! The Liza part was hilarious although repulsive and will haunt me for weeks!
Posted by: Tara (twoleggedtara) | May 31, 2010 at 05:01 PM
It sounds kind of awful, but I must ask... was the series ever really anything more than this?
Posted by: Tara | June 07, 2010 at 08:22 AM
The movie was horribly disappointing. To previous commenters - I totally disagree. I always watched that show because I related to the aspect of the female friendships and how "real" many of the situations were. The sex, shoes, designer labels were all just "frosting." There was very little-to-none of those beautiful moments of friendship in the movie.
Posted by: Jessica | June 07, 2010 at 07:05 PM
ugh. SOOOOOOOOOO bad. i really enjoyed the tv show until the super-cheesy happy ending, and the first movie was moderately tolerable as a fluffy entertainment-only movie, but the 2nd one was so bad it actually offended me...and probably a lot of muslim women.
not funny. not fashionable. and aside from the moment you mention between charlotte and miranda, none of the characters went through any kind of valuable growth or transformation that helped move their narratives along. literally, this movie was a giant waste of time both for the audience and the characters.
Posted by: Talleywog | June 12, 2010 at 01:40 AM