The Chocolate Review : Sex And The City 2

There are two reasons women flock to see a Sex And The City Flick. One, we want a reason to get dolled up and wear twelve hundred dollar shoes to a movie about women who do nothing but get dolled up and wear twelve hundred dollar shoes. Also, we want to live vicariously through the designer filled closets of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda until a reminder of our less than glorious pay checks rip us tragically back into reality. Unfortunately, Michael Patrick King’s Sex And The City 2 will leave you inspired to do neither and unless you’re trying to be reminded of why sequels often shame their predecessors, you might wanna just throw on some flip flops and call it a Blockbuster night.

Watching Sex And The City 2 was like going on a second date with a really hot and interesting guy only to have him repeat everything he said on the first date with bad breath. We meet up with our usual suspects two years after where SATC left us. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), a happily married woman finds herself questioning the rules of marriage and whether or not they apply to her and Big. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), still reconciled with her husband can’t decide if work or children are equally important. Samantha (Kim Catrall) is, well, still screwing everything that moves and poor little Charlotte (Kristin Davis) finally admits that motherhood may be too much to handle, and it doesn’t help that her perky young nanny might have the eyes of her husband. And everyone elses.

From the beginning this flick started off queer and not because it opened on Stanford and Anthony’s gay wedding. We’ll disregard the all male choir and the blinding white set decoration reminiscent of a Fred Astaire dance number. Aside from that the dialogue was immediately choppy and seemed as if it was being used to set up jokes rather than entertain the audience. There was a gay joke every 60 seconds which we’re guessing was supposed to be amusing but really just seemed offensive. What hurt the most was the absence of a single piece of astounding fashion for the ENTIRE opening scene until Miranda appeared like a ray of heavenly light beckoning us to keep our faith. Faith that died out about twenty minutes into the film.

Apparently Liza Minnelli is a licensed minister who appears briefly to both marry Stanford and Anthony and scare the crap out of her insurance company. There was something unavoidably creepy about her spirited rendition of All The Single Ladies. I mean, the woman’s like four hundred years old and despite her multiple hip and knee replacements- the chick can move. But even her withstanding talent couldn’t prevent us from squinting in mild repulsion as she showed us what she was working with. Sadly, this didn’t make us cringe the most.

The movie takes off when Samantha is offered an all expense paid trip to the world’s most luxurious hotel in Abu Dhabi by the owner who hopes her word of mouth will broaden its popularity. Of course the girls tag along and you’d think that experience would be a whole lot of fun for us to watch, right? Well, if your definition of fun is watching four middle aged women wear gaudy get-ups in blowing desert sand, get drunk, scream excessively and completely disregard a country’s sacred culture then sure- it was TONS of fun!

Lets start with the largest, most apparent let down of the film: the wardrobe. Or what we like to more accurately call, the horrordrobe. The stylists knew they had some pretty big shoes to fill after the major fashion success in SATC. Sadly, in what seemed to be an attempt to out due the first, the wardrobe in SATC 2 was the equivalent to a SATC costume party thrown by the Desperate (Arabian) Housewives of Tackville. We can count on one hand how many garments we would trade a shiny red kidney for. Everything else made us wince in horrid disapproval. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse Samantha showed up in something that looked like Bowser from the Super Mario Brothers video game. You’ll know exactly what we’re talking about when you see it. Trust.

We didn’t care about the story because it wasn’t good! And if you’re gonna bore us to death with a lack luster story the least you could do is throw some fashion up there we could die for. Not die looking at. The characters got more flighty and less grounded in their boundless womanhood, which is why we all love them in the first place.

We must address the slightly questionable antics played out by most of our leading ladies, specifically Samantha. In Abu Dhabi the laws and religion are taken very seriously. Had anything Samantha did actually happened she would have surely gotten more than a brief slap on the wrist she received. But cultural accuracy is not something we expect from SATC. Entertainment is. And we got neither.

Overall, Sex and The City 2 was an over the top, hub drub sequel that was hard to get through. We wanted more of what the first one had to offer and less of everything that we got. Sure, it was a fun ride and we laughed a few times. But did we leave the theater satisfied? No. Did we want our money back? No. But we were sure as hell happy we caught a discounted matinee. Paying those three extra dollars might have fueled enough spite to drop this review down one more star. In all, if you loved the first one you’ll like the sequel. But barely. And not without some convincing.

The Chocolate Review gives Sex And The City 2 a 2 out of 5 stars for the following reasons:

• Less than glorious wardrobe choices
• Choppy, bad writing
• SETTING US UP WITH ALL THAT DARN ANTICIPATION FOR NOTHIN’!
• Unbelievable, mousy, slapstick circumstances