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The moment has arrived. The movie you have all waited for is here. That’s right, it’s the one and only, most anticipated movie of the year, the sequel to Sex and the City! Do you sense the sarcasm? Well, I hope you picked up on it. I’ve seen several episodes of the six-season TV hit and just recently saw the first film to research for this film. Oh I know, the things I do for the readers. Alright, I’ll admit that I actually enjoyed the first film. The first film delivered what the fans expected from the franchise delivering a decent story with the 4-pack of dating troubled females that women, and some men, have come to love. Sex and the City 2 fails to provide a well paced story or a solid screenplay, but guarantees to still bank on the films groupies.
The movie still has the huge dynamic of four women coming from four very different natures except their lives have now greatly changed. “Sex and the City” was all about the lives of four wealthier New York ladies and their drama in the bedroom but has now changed to the lives of extremely rich ladies who have either began families of their own or are now content with their lifestyle. Watching the lives of these rich girls makes the film seem more like a story about poor little rich girls that don’t get their way.
Don’t get me wrong though. The movies have gone in the right direction in the way of story. The first film is more or less about Carrie’s, SARAH JESSICA PARKER, struggle with finding her groove after long time on-and-off again boyfriend “Mr. Big”, CHRIS NOTH, has nervous feet about their wedding. In the sequel Carrie has to deal with life after marriage and the intricacy involved to keep it working. Sex and the City 2 follows the next chapter in the girls lives, or better fitting: the next book in Carrie’s “Sex and the City” series. The audience isn’t forced to deal with the same drama or relationship problems the series has followed in the past. Instead, we are actually treated to a new matured outlook towards relationships. That is except for of course Samantha, KIM CATRALL, who is stuck living as a thirty-year-old ‘horndog’ with hormones running rapid trapped in a fifty-two years old body.
I was happy to see the story continue in the right path, but was quickly saddened by how writer Michael Patrick King went about telling it. The first film uniquely told the story with the majority of the film fixing a problem throughout. The lessons were learned during the course of most of the film where as the sequel is really two films in one. Instead of having an inciting incident toward the first 15 minutes of the film, it really comes more toward the halfway mark. It is hear where the movie jumps course to whole other film about all the silly situations the four can get into on a vacation to Abu Dhabi.
The film continues to get more outrageous the longer this already way to long film gets. Being that the Middle Eastern part is advertised heavily, I awaited for what had to be a long sequence for a long time. I kept pondering when on Earth they were going to move along to the second part of the film. By the time the film finally gets there, the movie has already begun to get stale and tired. As we continue longer and longer in the second local, I began to rethink about what happened back in New York when I started to question to myself, “Was that this movie or the first?”
Even the first scene dragged as it never felt that it was getting anywhere. It was funny by all means with some of the most hilarious moments taking place within the first twenty minutes, but I wanted to know where this was going. Every scene had a reason for being there, except it didn’t NEED to be there. Perhaps King couldn’t bear to delete some of the scenes because of the humor within them, however I think the movie would have benefited greatly with a lot of it removed.
There really are some fantastic moments that are truly laugh-out-loud funny along with some not so great one-liners. It slowly starts with a gay wedding, and believe me, it’s as gay as it gets. Its okay people, they even say it is in the movie. It probably only felt sluggish because of the only part of the scene that was useful to the movies storyline was toward the end. Other than that, I feel it was put there just for all the comedic opportunities. There were a few scenes like this, and when it’s already way too slow in the first place, it feels like insult to injury.
I laughed my way through it, but continued to wonder when it was going to end. I was tired of the shenanigans in Abu Dhabi and felt that the movie was starting to become just ridiculous ways to create situational humor. In fact, Carrie’s old boyfriend from the series plays a major role but is put into the story in the most outlandish circumstances that I couldn’t see it ever taking place. It was as if the filmmakers decided what the cast had to overcome and Abu Dhabi paid for them to set it there followed by a script that was written around that.
These days I try more to judge movies based on their entertainment merit where Sex and the City 2 was definitely funny and entertaining. Thirty minutes shaved off of it would have been greatly appreciated though. A little tweak of what the focal point of the story should have been may have also helped the movie climax at an appropriate pace. It’s the morals and relationship tidbits that keep this film true to the franchise and worth seeing. There are some good cameos alone that make it worth it. Then again, that would mean you could leave halfway through.
The girls being back shall make many fans happy while not making the men suffer too much agony while having to sit through a film stamped as a chick flick. This is a film that has a wide audience of females from 20’s to 50’s with many different plots that should be quite relatable for many, but due to their new found richness, it might just be rubbing it in our faces.
