SATC 2 picks up where the last film ended: Carrie (Parker) and Big (Chris Noth) are settling into marriage, while deciding on what wedded bliss looks like sans baby; Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Steve (David Eisenberg) are juggling Miranda’s hectic work schedule and angry boss with their family life; Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is struggling with the trials and tribulations of raising two young daughters; and Samantha (Kim Catrall) is trying to stave off menopause by ingesting hormones by the fistful. So when Samantha gets offered an all expenses paid vacay to Abu Dhabi, she brings her ladies for extravagant lady bonding and wacky shenanigans. While in the Middle East, Carrie runs into old flame Aidan (John Corbett) and old emotions resurface.
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The film is just offensive on so many levels. In a time of deep recession and unemployment, these women frivolously throw money about like it grows on trees—seriously, I read that Parker wears a $50,000 dress in one scene. On top of that, the film begins with an over-the-top gay wedding that makes Liza Minelli (doing her best “Single Ladies” rendition while trying not to look lost) look like she’s a flannel-wearing, chainsaw-wielding lumberjack who thinks homosexuality will wear off on him if he drank anything but whiskey and beer. And Samantha does her best to offend everyone with her outrage of not being able to dress like a whore in a Muslim city. Just when it couldn’t get any more offensive, the writers try to convince me that every woman can relate to another simply through fashion. No matter how different we all are, we all just want to wear frilly things and jump up and down with excitement? Give me a break.
Sure, this film is maybe slightly better than the first. It is chock-full of the slightly un-clever puns that made the series so much fun, and the eye candy is above and beyond the best part of the film. There are slight glimmers of the greatness of the show, which is the wonderful friendship between these four women, but they are so few and far in between that it made me long for the good ol’ days even more. A favorite scene of Miranda and Charlotte bonding over the hardships of motherhood and saying the things no mother wants to say out loud over drinks in their hotel room almost made up for when Charlotte gets a camel toe—on an actual camel… Oh, brother.
Whereas Sex and the City the show celebrated independent women looking for love (and the perfect pair of shoes) while in the company of their best friends, Sex and the City 2 isn’t about anything other than buying tons of shit and complaining about how their lives aren’t “perfect.” And most women will eat it up. Sometimes I’m embarrassed for my sex…
--Darcie Duttweiler