MOVIE REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS | YOUTUBE NEWS EDITORIALS | EVENTS | AUDIO | ESSAYS | ARCHIVES | CONTACT |
 
PHOTOS | COMING SOON| EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES ||
HOME

                                                           
Thursday, May 27, 2010

MOVIE REVIEW
Sex And The City 2
Has Anyone Seen A New Movie Lately?


Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon in "Sex And The City 2", directed by Michael Patrick King.   Warner Brothers

                                                                                                                  
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW
Thursday, May 27, 2010

Heavens above.  Those four Manhattan materialists are back, in a second "Sex And The City", again written, produced and directed by Michael Patrick King.  This time the ladies are on an adventure in Abu Dhabi after accepting a movie financier's offer of an all-expenses paid, all-chaperoned-all-the-time stay.  Twenty-four months of marriage will be tested.  Babysitters will never be interpreted the same way.  Phallic wonderment for man-eating marauders will be back on display.

However you view the premise of Mr. King's latest, one thing's obvious: "Sex And The City 2" worships at the altar of material self-lathering, excess and indulgence par excellence.  That's the film's m.o.  Its vacuous ways supersede its grotesquely racist and homophobic tenor.  Littered with nasty stereotypes of Middle Easterners, women and gays, this "comedy" film transforms into one horror-filled, pathetic fantasy sketch after another. 

The screenplay, full of caricatured dialogue, doesn't advertise itself as a satire, yet surely is one.  (Isn't it?)  The quartet of upper-middle class New York women with disposable income complain once again about their trivial, inane dramas.  The film, and the characters played by Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall condescend and patronize incessantly. 

The experience is more disheartening to watch when you consider that "Sex And The City 2" drones on for a mini-David Lean-epic two hours and 24 minutes.  Either the film's length serves to underline its own inflated self-importance, or the great, avant-garde costume designing legend Patricia Field demanded that a full, unexpurgated inventory of costume changes be displayed in the film, which shows off its red carpet parade of fashion hits and misses, not to mention its proud product placement. 

The arguments between the film's married people are magnified unnecessarily.  The spats are almost exclusively about material things or objectification.  In my naïveté I'll say that I don't think rich people truly live or behave like this.  Some rich peoples' lives may be empty, but I'll bet they're a lot more complex than the lives of the opulent and splendiferous label maidens at the heart of "Sex And The City 2", a film infinitely worse than its 2008 predecessor.  (To boot, the film confirms the already-known fact that ladies generally talk more bawdily and graphically about sex and genitalia than men could ever dream of doing.)


Warner Brothers

Mr. King's film mines every cliché, fear and sexist joke for laughs.  It references a classic film of yesteryear, a film whose amusing, clever interplay between the sexes still holds up decades later, and far better than this film full of juvenile, women-hating, mother-loathing banter ever could.  As a film, "Sex And The City 2" is as desperate to get laid as a "backed-up" sailor.  It wallows, drunk in its own glitterati and colorful visions.  But all that glitters isn't gold. 

The sad thing is, I laughed at a lot of this nonsense.  Sadder still is that as I did, I knew it wasn't right.  I wondered: why on earth am I laughing at this?  (Much of my laughter ceased in the first hour.) 

Of all the players Carrie (Ms. Parker) is the smartest and most appealing.  Yet the film needlessly dolls her up to dumb her down with oversized hats and mundane, idle interactions.  Carrie's seriousness and self-awareness is drowned out in a sea of fools and cosmetic folly.  (A lady in the audience could be heard repeatedly saying of Carrie: "That's a spray tan!"  And me, a straight man, said to himself: why is Carrie always walking around her lavish apartment in high heels?)  

The worst parts of the film take place in Abu Dhabi (filmed in Morocco), where like many Hollywood films about four American or western women basking in far away "exotic" lands, the natives are mainly props or background filler.  When the natives are front and center they are insulted and ridiculed by this self-absorbed quartet of mostly obnoxious and empty-headed tourists.  One or two especially offensive scenes include a shameless "I see you" moment amounting to a materialism colonization. 

Unscripted review: "Sex And The City 2"


Just as hideous and offensive is the film's pretentious, mocking salute to women's empowerment, which feels like a man's disingenuous or paternalistic attempt at endorsing or foolishly thinking he can somehow "validate" feminism.  Having said this, Gloria Steinem won't likely throw up if she sees "Sex And The City 2".  I imagine she'll laugh with, and at, its silliness and superficiality, as will many women, who will be too busy to care and will enjoy this elongated caper immensely.

I suspect the film's core fan base includes some straight men who will love this toxic fluff but may not dare admit it.  They will have a grand old time over the Memorial Day holiday weekend at the local movie theater, completely forgetting the smart, sharp writing of the television series that spawned two epic films. 

Television is of course a writer's medium, and it was the writing that made HBO's "Sex And The City" series so good and watchable.  Mr. King wrote numerous episodes in that series created by Darren Star, so what happened here?  There's so much good talent (with some cameos) on that big old screen, but sadly, nobody's home in the editing room or creative division.

With: Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Mario Cantone, Willie Garson, Raza Jaffrey, Jason Lewis, Max Ryan, Alice Eve, Kelli O'Hara, Manuel Herrera, Michael T. Weiss, Megan Boone, Raya Meddine, Goldy Notay, Anoush NeVart.

"Sex And The City 2" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for some strong sexual content and language.  The film's duration is two hours and 24 minutes.  The film opened in some places on Wednesday evening and at midnight this morning across the U.S. and Canada in special screenings.

COPYRIGHT 2010.  POPCORNREEL.COM.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.                


SUBSCRIBE TO THE POPCORN REEL MOVIE REVIEWS RSS FEED
"movie reviews" via popcornreel in Google Reader

MOVIE REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS | YOUTUBE NEWS EDITORIALS | EVENTS | AUDIO | ESSAYS | ARCHIVES | CONTACT |
 
PHOTOS | COMING SOON| EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES ||
HOME