Before we begin our final look at the last film in our TV Remake Madness line-up for Bad Movie Month this year,I must make a confession; I was never a fan of the HBO series Sex and the City and actually disliked it wholeheartedly.
I watched a couple of episodes(also never read any of Candice Bushnell's work,on which the show was based)and frankly was less than impressed by it. I do enjoy chick lit or what I prefer to call female friendly material in both books and film plus even the "shoes and shopping" sub genre can have it's charms for me. However,SATC just wasn't my cup of fancy dress tea.
Despite that predisposition,I was willing to give Sex and the City 2 a chance and no,I didn't see the first movie. Granted,my expectations were rather low and my dread levels were high due to this sequel being two and a half hours long. Yet, I figured that if I could handle sitting through the likes of Battlefield Earth,this should be a piece of cake. Sadly,I underestimated the full on foot dragging pace of this epic ode to shallowness:
The story line of SATC2 takes place two years after the first film,where three out of the four gal pals-Carrie(Sarah Jessica Parker),Miranda(Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte(Kristin Davis)-are somewhat happily married while good time Samantha(Kim Cattrall) is doing what she can to keep up appearances in the youth and sex drive department.
They all meet up to attend a gay wedding for two of their friends in which Liza Minnelli is the one who marries the couple,mainly so that she can perform a cover version of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" at the reception.
Now, this could have been a fun spin on the even then overplayed hit song but instead,what we got was eerily similar to watching Pat Boone doing an Elvis number on the Lawrence Welk show:
After the wedding,the married members of this giddy group reflect upon their life troubles(Charlotte has trouble dealing with her kids despite a live-in nanny and Miranda wants to change jobs)but the one who feels most in distress is Carrie.
Her big problem? Dream husband Mr. Big(Chris Noth)would rather stay home with her at night instead of going out to fancy restaurants and attending movie premieres,oh the horror!
Mr. Big seems like quite a pushover as he flips over backwards more than an Olympic athlete during finals to please his moody wife. The guy is happy to either cook dinner or pick up takeout,gives Carrie a TV for their bedroom as an anniversary gift so that they can spend more time together in bed(hello!)and is fine with Carrie taking off for a couple of days a week to spend at her old apartment on a regular basis.
She complains about him not having "sparkle" for her after two years which in Carrie speak must mean "treating every moment we're together as if we're still dating." I kept waiting for Mr. Big to tell her to grow the hell up but he never did.
I was feeling so sorry for this guy that at a later time in the movie(which feels as if it won't end until Armageddon),Carrie calls long distance to let her hubby know that she's just kissed an old rival of his and I was yelling at the screen "Leave her!" Alas,no,he winds up buying her a black diamond ring which,yes,Carrie,is as dark as your narcissistic soul.
She's also a bitch to her friends,too. During the trip to Abu Dhabi that the gals take together,Charlotte advises Carrie not to have dinner with the former ex-lover that she winds up kissing and telling about to her husband afterward. Carrie reacts like a snotty teenager and slams her friend,with a crappy apology later on but still she is way too old to be playing high school games with anyone there:
The trip to Abu Dhabi(which was actually filmed in Morocco)is arranged by Samantha,who is being courted professionally by a luxury hotel chain that wants her PR firm to promote them to Americans.
It's pretty hard to believe that Samantha has the skill set to run a business of any sort ,except for maybe a brothel, since she spends most of her time chugging down a slew of natural and otherwise dubious hormone pills to "trick' her body into staying youthful enough to maintain her cougar lifestyle.
Mind you,I have nothing against older women enjoying their sexuality but Samantha's mission in life seems to be all about her love life and not much else.
A good number of the cringe worthy scenes in this movie belong to her as the one where Samantha is sitting in her glass walled office(that also has large windows with an unobstructed view of Times Square) with her panties around her ankles to apply estrogen cream on a certain area. She even conducts a phone conversation that ends with "I have to pull up my pants now!"
I swear that I would rather watch a three day marathon of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo than see any of Samantha's moments of passion on screen again,which are damn loud and disturbing on many levels.
During the Abu Dhabi trip,she frets about losing her vitality when her meds are confiscated at the airport and hopes to find a "Lawrence of my labia" to revive her lust. She has no trouble getting the right man but does wind up offending the locals with her less than subtle ways of courtship despite being repeatedly told to do so by Miranda,who seems to have not much else to do in this film:
Miranda and Charlotte don't have much to do other than worry about their easily solved problems but they do belt down a few drinks to share their doubts about motherhood and wonder how people "without help",meaning nannies and sitters,manage at all. Gee,it must be hard to deal with children who don't respect your vintage clothes that you wear to bake cupcakes in!
This entitlement essence swarms over the whole film as the ladies are mainly impressed by the glamorous surroundings of their hotel in Abu Dhabi,with each of them given a car and man servant to attend them even at three in the morning to heat up milk if they can't sleep.
Lip service is paid to how women are regarded in the Middle East but it's mostly seen as an inconvenience(especially to the ever horny Samantha).I know this is supposed to be a comedy but it's hard to laugh when Carrie and her crew are watching a woman in a burqa eat french fries like it's a spectator sport or marvel at being able to buy fancy shoes at a marketplace for only twenty dollars.
Also,the fact that the four of them sing a karaoke version of "I Am Woman" in a nightclub with belly dancers all over the place and not strike one note of irony while doing so is a crime against humor,in my opinion.
SATC2 was proclaimed one of the worst films of 2010 and earned several Razzie nominations,with three wins in the Worst Actress(all of them shared that nom),Worst Screen Ensemble and Worst Prequel,Remake,Rip-off or Sequel categories. Never was such a honor more well earned there,folks!
Sorry for being so lengthy with this write-up but the deep hurting that this movie induces is not easy to sum up quickly. Thank you for checking Bad Movie Month 2012 and hopefully I will have recovered enough from this decadent debacle to do this again next year(pretty sure I will):
Sex and the City really turned into a vapid parody of itself here, elevating its consumerist roots into a hideous golden god. Yuck. Awful movie, good review. Deep hurting indeed.
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