HOLD on to your Manolos and pour yourself a cosmopolitan, because Carrie and the girls are back in their second movie outing.
But you better practice your throw because you’ll be pelting old horse face and her crew of menopausal guuurlfriends with your $400 shoes, heel first, and aiming your cocktail at their tired faces after enduring what can only be described as the franchise’s death knell.
What was once a sassy, clever and sharply funny TV show has somehow been reduced to a two and half hour yawn-fest of product placement and quibbling over the sort of inane, uninteresting issues which wouldn’t go amiss on an episode of Loose Women.
Two years has passed since the first film and apparently a lot has happened. Well, not exactly. While Carrie is still married to Mr Big (snore), Charlotte has had another child, Miranda is still a workaholic and, despite popping more hormone pills than a factory farmed cow, Samantha is still bonking any man with a pulse and an open fly.
The story kicks off with a fun gay wedding scene, complete with white swans and Liza Minelli in a stomach churningly short cocktail dress, but it’s not long before disaster strikes.
Big dies? Samantha’s vagina closes up? Carrie’s feet are crushed under the wheels of a monster truck and she’s reduced to wearing ill-fitting wooden clogs?
No, worse. Samantha bags an all expenses paid trip to the most glamoruous, exotic and luxurious country in the world. Wait for it…Abu Dhabi. That’s right, you heard correctly, Abu Dhabi.
Admittedly, it doesn’t sound too shabby. But the weakest episodes of the series were always when the foursome left the Big Apple, so a sojourn in the Middle East smacks of writer Michael Patrick King’s desperation to find anything new for the characters to do.
A maximum of 20 minutes there would have been sufficient to pad the film out, but as the girls check into their seven star hotel and spend what feels like the longest five minutes of your life gawping at the room’s luxurious fittings, you realise you are in for the long haul.
With Samantha literally sticking her middle finger up to Muslim modesty, it’s not devoid of humour but there’s something slightly uncomfortable about the film’s condescending depiction of what they quaintly dub the new Middle East.
As an unashamed fan of the original series, watching Sex and the City 2 is like attending the funeral of your best friends.
And the cause of its frankly embarrassing death? The loss of the one thing which made the show funny, poignant and ground-breaking in the first place – four independent single girls in the big city looking for love but always coming back empty handed.
With three out of four of the girls now married, and an unwillingness in this film to rock the boat again, there’s a distinct lack of drama.
Even a chance meeting with old flame Aiden fails to add any excitement to the story.
After Carrie receives a damning review of her latest book about marital life, she bemoans, “I should have just stuck to writing about what I know – being single.”
To which Samantha replies, “There will be other reviews. Fabulous reviews.” But in this case Sam, I think that would be just wishful thinking. RIP Sex and the City.
Sex and the City 2 (15) is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.
Extra Content
DVD
Revisiting the 80s
Sex and the City 2 Soundtrack: Behind the Scenes with Alicia Keys
Blu-ray
So Much Can Happen in Two Years – A Conversation with Sarah Jessica Parker and Director Michael Patrick King
Styling Sex and the City 2
Marry Me Liza!
Revisiting the 80s
The Men of Sex and the City
Sex and the City 2 Soundtrack: Behind the Scenes with Alicia Keys
Audio Commentary with Director Michael Patrick King
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