SEX AND THE CITY 2:
It was very bad, apparently.
Jezebel: How bad is SATC 2? In addition to being “insipid,” “condescending,” and “blatantly anti-Muslim,” it made reviewers experience delirious hallucinations about adding Eleanor Roosevelt as the fifth “girl” or killing them all off in a “heart-rending Death of Spock-type scene.”
Hollywood Reporter: Even in an escapist fantasy, the spectacle of women sinking into this billionaire’s paradise at a time of widespread economic hardship initially seems creepy and off-putting. Soon, however, their Arab sojourn takes unexpected turns. First of all, Carrie encounters her old flame, Aidan (John Corbett), at the spice market, but even more importantly, she and her friends run up against the puritanical and misogynistic culture of the Middle East. The rather scathing portrayal of Muslim society no doubt will stir controversy, especially in a frothy summer entertainment, but there’s something bracing about the film’s saucy political incorrectness. Or is it politically correct? “SATC 2” is at once proudly feminist and blatantly anti-Muslim, which means that it might confound liberal viewers.
Salon: It’s hard to tell what “Sex and the City 2: Attack of the Clones” is supposed to be advertising: Is it homosexuality or Islam? Bergdorf Goodman or Abu Dhabi? Not that any of those products come off too well, but this ghastly, gassy, undead franchise-extender feels like an infomercial for something, and it can’t be heterosexual marriage. That appears to be an endless nightmare from which three of the four SATC gals are struggling to awaken.
Associated Press: Much of the shtick has long since gotten old. Carrie’s running voiceover, the structural thread all along, feels intrusive and pat. Charlotte’s cutesy prudishness seems an ill fit on a married mother of two. And Samantha’s corny puns reach a new low, as evidenced by her reference to a hot, globe-trotting architect she meets in the desert as “Lawrence of my labia.” It’s seriously cringe-inducing.
New York Post: The girls aren’t interested in anything except shopping, drinking and strutting through the desert in slo-mo, but what’s most appalling is that they vamp to “I Am Woman” in this land of sand Nazis. A veil “cuts back on the Botox bill!” chirps Samantha. Har. In Abu Dhabi husbands can legally beat their wives – and Carrie thinks this place is Oz, a cure for her boredom with a zillionaire husband who, she complains, eats too much takeout. (She won’t cook because she’s more “Coco Chanel than Coq au vin.” Waiter: one divorce, please).
The Village Voice: As for Carrie: Sarah Jessica Parker is now 45 years old, and, frankly, I cannot stomach another moment of the simpering, mincing, hair-tossing, eyelash-batting little-girl shtick she’s been pulling ever since she emerged, with considerably more verve and charm, as a high-colonic Malibu Barbie opposite Steve Martin in L.A. Story.
Are we, as women or as viewers in general, just over SATC worldview? Do we care less, collectively, about shoes? Or was this just a very bad movie?
Regardless, the first wasn’t exactly all we’d cracked it up to be either — we mostly prefer friendship or makeover-related montages, set to soft but uplifting music, which accompany some sort of teary moment of our lives or something funny, like the Atlantic City episode!
The jury’s still out on if the first show had anything redeemingly feminist about it, but it did, still, have … well… SOMETHING about it. The show was pretty fucking special.
Because once upon a time, between the talk of overpriced shoes and pre-cum, Sex & The City was revolutionary just ’cause it valued chicks before dicks. It was, at times, even for queers, an inspiring model for a new world where men were certainly a focus, but not the point.
Memory Lane: Sex and the City – The TV Show
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1. A friendship montage totally designed to make your eyes water:
Charlotte: “Maybe we could be each other’s soulmates, and then we could let men just be these great nice guys to have fun with.”
Samantha: “Well, that sounds like a plan.”
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2. Season 6, Episode 88
Samantha learns that she has breast cancer, and tells Carrie about it in a cab on their way to Miranda’s wedding, but Samantha insists on not telling anyone else, lest they ruin Miranda’s special day. But FRIEND-LOVE TRIUMPHS SPECIAL DAYS.
Samantha: I said no tears! Miranda, I expected more from you.
Carrie: See this is what we were afraid of! We’ll talk about this later. Go back to your people.
Miranda: YOU are my people, and we’ll talk about it now.
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3. Season 3, Episode 48: Cock-a-Doodle-Doo:
Because who doesn’t love drag queens, hot dogs, and underwear-as-pants?
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4. Season 6, Episode 93: An American Girl in Paris (Part Une)
You know when that girl has totally fucked over your best friend and you want to punch her in the mouth for all the times she’s punched your best friend in the gut? And you really feel like, should said asshat ever want to weasel her way back into your friend’s life, she will have to deal with you first? Here’s when Mr. Big did that too (starts at 1:05).
Mr.Big: Well I know I haven’t been your favorite over the years.
Charlotte: I wouldn’t say that.
Samantha: I would.
Mr. Big: Well, God knows I’ve made a lot of mistakes with Carrie. I fucked it up many times, and I know that. Look I need your advice. You three know her better than anyone. You’re the loves of her life, and a guy’s just lucky to come in fourth. But I do love her. And if you think I have the slightest change, I’ll be on the next plane to Paris, I’ll roam the streets until I find her, I’ll do anything. But if you think that she really is happy – well, I wouldn’t want to wreck that for her. And I’ll be history.
Miranda: Go get our girl.
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5. Season Six finale, last moments. This montage does no wrong.
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So did you catch the movie? What did you think? What were your favorite moments of the series? Do you think it’s still relevant? Were you alive when these girls appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine, declaring that the world had changed? It was very scary. Women without husbands. Witches!!! Stone them!
really bad movie. my flatmate was smart: she was awake for the beginning of the first half, took notice of Erin Without A Bra, fell asleep, was woken up by us with ice cream, fell asleep occasionally during the second half.
seriously. they should rename it, like “Sex touring the Cities”. they weren’t even in NYC, and at least an hour of the entire movie was unnecessary.
I mean:
a) the gay wedding. thanks to big, we were reminded every other second that it was a GAY wedding. I never pictured him as the guy who’d be afraid of being hit on by a man anyways, so there’s that. and then the downplaying of the actual marriage by the simple utterance “I’m allowed to cheat”.
b) carrie. I know what pisses me off about this woman, every time: she never, in like 15 years, NEVER learned to solve her problems like an adult. my friends already have the permission to shoot me if I ever and up with a girlfriend that behaves like her.
c) they were guests in a country. if you don’t agree with the rules of said country enough to actually respect them, don’t go there. the whole Samantha-story was just sad and pathetic and disrespecting. ok, so you’re not allowed to have sex on the beach. darling, you got yourself a fine hotel-room.
d) problem solving anyone? Miranda quit her job in 2 seconds. the show was about talking and evolving and stuff, not about quitting your job in 2 seconds.
on the upside, it was fun. we got roses and champagne, I loved the sound of a million heels at our cinema, everyone was cheering when Miranda told Charlotte to just drink.
Please, PLEASE tell me you’ve read Lindy West’s evisceration of this film in The Stranger: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/burkas-and-birkins/Content?oid=4132715
My favorite line: “SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it’s my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car.”
Oh my gawwwwd thank you for that link. There were many, many great lines, but these take the cake:
‘This is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls.’
‘”If I wasn’t rich, I’d definitely just kill myself right away with a knife!” says everyone in this movie without having to actually say it.’
‘When they arrive, Carrie, because she is a professional writer, announces, “Oh, Toto—I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!”‘
I’ve never watched the show or any of the movies — really I cannot bear watching Sarah Jessica Parker and her terrifying lizard eyes and demeanor that reminds me of this awful girl I went to college with in anything — but it can be fun to read about it and hate it really hard.
I know I think that the movie was created so that article
could be written. I generally don’t read straight-up movie reviews, and I never read food reviews, but that particular movie review gave me feelings akin to my feelings about< a href="http://nymag.com/restaurants/reviews/underground/19680/">this review of Max Brenner: Chocolate By the Bald Man, which I felt stood alone, restaurant or not.
is sex and the city The TV Show still happening. someone today told me that satc2 should have been in new york. that’s the only opinion i have.
There should not have been a two period. The first SATC movie was pretty good. They tied up everything, fixed everything from the show everyone was happy. WHY!? Why did they need another one? Greedy! That’s why and that’s why it is a fail!
I started watching SATC in college because I had a deal with my girlfriend that if I watched SATC she would watch BSG with me. I ended up really enjoying the show she on the other hand did not want to put in the time to watch BSG. I saw the first movie and thought it was alright. I am going to see the SATC 2 tonight.
I LOOOOVE SATC. I can pick it up over the web using seetvpc.com.
Can’t say how the 2nd movie is, but am going to see it this weekend! Good or bad, I love watching scenery and the clothes ;)
SATC2 was ham handed and completely unnecessary. The writing was horrible and the entire movie was one note. I feel like I had to suspend my disbelief in such a way that makes most of the sci fi i watch look much more plausible comparatively.
I watched Sex and the City 2 last night and really enjoyed it! It was surprisingly funny and kept everyone in the theatre wide eyed and ready for what was to come next.
I really don’t think it sucked, it was fun to watch and I was proud of the way everything turned out.
Some might think the movie didn’t portray the friendships of the girls’ enough which would be overshadowed by their relationship woes. But I actually think this was not the case at all. It looked to me that they cared about each other a great deal, just as much as they would have during any other episode.
They showed that thay always wanted to be around each other as a hand to hold, an ear that would listen or a shoulder to cry on.
Samantha even said while they were at the karaoke club, they were “each others’ soul mates,” repeating what Charlotte had said within an episode of their TV series.
I think there might be some speculations that the Muslim culture was being made fun of, but I think that they used the differences as a metaphor, saying that some women do not have their own individuality, hence Mianda’s job. Or maybe made them realize that they have it better at home and helped them feel better about returning to their lives in NYC.
As for Samantha, she was just being herself, she obviously can’t take that Muslims aren’t as sex craved as she is.
Men have always been a big part of these ladies lives, its one of the reasons why they relate to each other so well. But something has changed from those beautiful memories that we all know and love to now which are, instead of wandering the city thinking that they want something, they now know what they want.
All in all, in this movie the biggest thing that they fight for, whether they fully achieved it or not, is to let everyone know that the four of them will always be one.
I don’t know where to start….let’s just say that I was a huge fan of SATC for years and found it new and fresh. I watched the first movie and then TRIED to watch SATC 2 and couldn’t stand it. Why did they have to try to contintue with another movie with a contrived, stupid, vapid dialog and dumber than dumb plot??? My didn’t they just leave well enough alone? I thought I would upchuck during that gay wedding…Busby Berkeley was probably turning in his grave…and that thing SJP put on her head for the ceremony…please. Fire the person in wardrobe. She looked like a donkey and the Wicked Witch combined. Add to that that ridculous hat she wore on the plane on the way to the UAE…like, what was the point. Why so over the top?? The two seconds you saw that thing it was alarming to say the least…you could’ve used it as a beach umbrella. At that point in the movie I thought, OK, now this is schtick for the sake of schtick and I completely lost interest in the movie. I shut it off and went and did laundry. Cheesy, stupid, horrible dialog…character assassination at it’s finest. UGH. REFUND PLEASE.