July Issue 2010

By | Arts & Culture | Movies | Published 14 years ago

Sex and the City 2, the movie, is just not fun. Especially for those who have been following the lovable foursome and their sensational lifestyles in the happening city of New York.

Two years after finally getting their happy ending in the first movie, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Big (Chris Noth) are now settled in a ritzy uptown dwelling. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Harry (Evan Handler) are the doting parents of two young daughters. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has settled in Brooklyn with her husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), and her son, Brady. And as for Samantha (Kim Cattrall), she is still blissfully promiscuous.

But all is not well with Carrie and Co. Carrie is annoyed about how Big prefers watching movies on their couch to parties. Miranda has a sexist boss who just won’t listen. Charlotte is struggling with her two young daughters, while Samantha is not only busy keeping menopause at bay but, in fact, trying to reverse it.

The film has sent the critics into feverish outrage — and understandably so. Sex and the City 2 is missing a plot. This dawns on the viewer as the foursome heads to Abu Dhabi on an all-expense paid, week-long vacation that takes up most of the film. It is during this part of the film that there are lazy attempts towards a plot such as Carrie running into her ex-fiance at a souk, Samantha’s rendezvous with a Danish architect almost landing her into jail and Charlotte’s outburst about her struggle with motherhood. Furthermore, there are desperate attempts to add ‘glamour’ with cameos from Penélope Cruz, Liza Minnelli and Miley Cyrus.

So a plot would have been nice. Essential actually.

Sex and the City fans wondered how the producer would take the first movie’s happy ending forward — and they were disappointed.

There is an obvious lack of creativity, the tone is erratic and witty one-liners have been reserved for the “gay wedding” of Carrie and Charlotte’s male best friends in the beginning and then in Abu Dhabi where the girls take a jab at the burqa more than once. But their attitude towards and depiction of Middle Eastern culture is quite ignorant.

In the end, one is just left wondering why the characters are being made to do what they are doing instead of what they did so magnificently well. Writer-director Michael Patrick King’s CV now has a permanent blemish on it.