Sex and the City 2: Adventures in Failure

Let's be honest. When they announced a sequel to the first Sex movie was in the works more than a few of you had some reservations. Sequels are usually terrible and slightly diminish the appeal of the first one that maybe you actually liked. Call me crazy, but there's something about taking a good thing and just raking it over the coals to capitalize on its prior success that just doesn't work.
This is what happened with Sex2.
I'll preface this review by saying that I love the series AND the first movie. I own the pink collector box set of all the seasons, I'm a Samantha, whateverdon'tjudgeme. But I was not at all excited for this movie, least of all when I saw the revoltingly airbrushed posters and anti-climactic trailer. I knew this would be bad, so I went in with not a single expectation to avoid disappointment.
Yet somehow I was still let down.
I won't go into a full break down of the film, I do not have the patience to relive it. But a few key points beg addressing:
1) WHY DID STANFORD MARRY ANTHONY WHEN THEY ALWAYS HATED EACH OTHER.
This makes no sense to me (and if you weren't a fan of the series.... skip this, you won't know what I'm talking about); remember when they were first set up together and it was so bad they didn't speak for like the next 3 seasons? Remember how Stanford always called Anthony 'that bitchy queen' and Anthony called him fat? This seemed to me a very sad, thrown-together union that Michael Patrick King came up with because there weren't any other minor characters to force into marriage/excessive pageantry. We have no one else... oh hey, wait there's two gay characters LET'S DO A GAY WEDDING!!! Even though it contradicts basically everything except in the first movie when they're randomly friends!! This upset me, a lot.
2) There was no plot to this movie. If you had to sum it up.... Carrie has minor mid-life crisis that is really just her being bored and unsatisfied with her perfectly amazing and well-provided for life (and frankly a huge spoiled diva - you don't need to go out every night to have 'sparkle' in a marraige, you wastrel), creates a 'problem' for her and her marriage (more boredom), makes fake problem a real problem by (SPOILER ALERT) kissing Aiden (Ok, like you really didn't see that coming? please, the trailer was too transparent for words), has cliche revelation when she thinks she might lose Big and realizes hey, my life was pretty awesome and I fucked it all up by being whiny and high maintenance. But even that is a stretch. It was more like a bunch of random scenes thrown together and geld by the rehashing of Charlotte's anxieties about Harry and the hot Irish nanny and Samantha's impending menopause problems.
3) We get it, Samantha, you are really going to miss your sex drive when menopause fully sets in. It was funny at first; no one appreciates a really terrible sex pun more than me - Lawrence of MyLabia? pure gold - but after awhile it gets really old. Like you. I'm sorry, I really am, you were always my favorite and I usually think you're actually funny, unlike Carrie who is just insipid and begging for a slap 90% of the time. But as the movie dragged on you were a huge contributor to my next off-color point which is...
4) The movie perpetuates the American idea that we can go to foreign countries, ignore the local customs and traditions, be huge overbearing assholes, and get away with it. Miranda spends the entire trip to Abu Dhabi (which was basically the whole film) trying to teach the girls about Arab culture, failing the whole time. Carrie repeatedly wears Eastern-looking clothes that make her seem shallow - a metallic rainbow head wrap? really? that's all you got from this culture? And Samantha has blatant disregard for every possible Arab social custom, even getting arrested for kissing on the beach. What is usually just her headstrong independence translates to "bigoted American tourist" here; every move she makes induces cringes.
5) Racism. It has to be said. The stereotypes of Arab people and culture keep on coming here, and it's really unsettling. Burkas and the veiling of womens' mouths is a big conversation topic - the women watch, gaping and laughing, as they see a veiled woman eat french fries. She is a spectacle. They then attempt to launch into a spiel on women's rights, talking about how 'it's like they just want their women silent, like objects or property'. oh, how insightful ladies. regular feminists over here everyone! Oh, and that last part, where the Arab women "rescue" our four heroines from a mob of men angry that Samantha spilled her condoms all over the market (totally irrational, right?) and end up having Louis Vuitton under their burkas? Definitely not egotistical at all. All cultures bow to the U.S. Of course people would wear another layer of clothing resembling American dress underneath their robes; who cares if no one sees it, deep down, they know they're conforming!
6) Why even bring Smith back if you're just going to have him go to the premier with Samantha and then never show him again?! You can't tease us like that; Smith is too beautiful and too close to the perfect man. I wanted that to work HARDCORE. This little cocktease of a cameo was BULSHIT.


There were a few things I did like. Miranda and Charlotte get drunk and have a bonding sesh about motherhood, which not only let's us see Charlotte as a fallible human (not comically flawed, like usual, but with real emotions!) but has two women ONE OF WHOM IS NOT CARRIE talking about real things. It is really really rare to see any of the four doing anything, least of all have a serious discussion, without Carrie, and this gave us a welcome break from the Bradshaw Show. Miranda was generally my favorite in this film, which is NEVER the case. Shes the only normal one here, without any of her usual high-strung uber bitchiness, and her jokes are on-point without being repetative (cough, Samantha). Also, despite my problems with the idea of the Stanford/Anthony union, the wedding scene was awesome. So many Liza Minelli jokes. So much Liza in general! She does the Single Ladies DANCE for her cover. The woman is in her 60s! That's amazing. Kudos.
The fashion was unremarkable. A lot of Halston, which makes sense given SJP's involvement with the brand. Too many sparkles. Carrie wore a tux to the wedding, which I really loved. But there was too many attempts to look 'Arabic' or 'Eastern' or whatever (camel scene, when they walk over the dune. Never have I been more upset with a costume department. Although making Samantha look like Cleopatra, complete with white hat-that-looked-like-a-wig, was so crazy it almost worked). As always with Carrie, there were hits - generally anything she was wearing in her apartment, especially the white suit she came back from Abu Dhabi in - and there were misses - that weird green striped sweater during the wedding brunch? that enormous straw hat on the plane? - so for her character... pretty typical. Everything else... eh, more of the same. There was basically no emphasis on fashion, unlike the first movie. If the movie had had a strong plot this would have been understandable but it didn't, so including more (or better) fashion would have at least given it a boost.

Overall... total bomb. Shoulda kept it buried; now it's only going to leave that bad-sequel aftertaste on top of an otherwise-successful run.
For shame, ladies.