Sex and the City 2

Critic's Rating: 3.0
Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristen Davis, Cynthia Nixon
Direction: Michael Patrick Young
Genre: Drama
Duration: 2 hours 26 minutes


Movie Review: The go-getter girls are truly at the crossroads, bogged down by different aspects of the mid-life crisis: motherhood, wifehood, menopause, the glass ceiling....Leading the brattish pack is Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) who doesn't know how to retain the `sparkle' in her two-year-old marriage to her avuncular husband who suddenly seems to have a craving for a third entity in their cosy domesticity. He wants a TV in the bedroom, much to the discomfiture of Carrie who can't see herself watching black and white Hollywood films, night after night, even though her husband thinks it's romantic. It Happened One Night is fine because it happens only one night, she yells, after a cosy viewing of the classic film. But day after day....Surely, it's time for a time-out before the magic disappears completely.


The other girls have their own set of woes. Like Charlotte's yelling kids and her sexy nanny who chooses to do cartwheels minus her lingerie; Miranda's misogynist boss who hates her voice -- and her talent; and Samantha's disappearing oestrogen that needs artificial stimulants to keep her hot and happening, despite being `fifty plus f***@$g two.' They get a chance to escape from it all when Samantha receives an invitation to holiday in Abu Dhabi from one of her clients.

And herein comes the problem. Once the girls arrive in Abu Dhabi, the film enters rough terrain. On the one hand it becomes more or less a touristy adventure where the foursome decide to `DO' the rich and prosperous Abu Dhabi after having undergone a long recession. And secondly, they decide to do it like stereotypical American tourists who view the exotic east as the quintessential backwaters. So, you have a series of insensitive and childish digs at the hijab, naqab, burqa, burkini and the antiquated laws of a land which can get you arrested for something as simple as kissing. OMG! gushes Carrie, as she sits back awe-struck to watch a native woman eat french fries through her hijab. And what's that, wonders a startled Samantha, when she hears the familiar call for prayer. And finally, the sisterhood seeks refuge from a group of belligerent sheikhs by hiding with a bunch of women who flaunt Louis Vitton and Prada beneath their burqas. Ah Amrika! When will you actually grow up and say Hello to an egalitarian world.

But, if you can ignore this insensitivity and infantile vision -- which actually isn't something new from commonplace Hollywood -- the girls have enough to keep the momentum going. Silly one liners, goofy situational slip-ups and some genuinely funny gags, specially by Samantha (Kim Cattrall) do keep the tedium at bay. Not forgetting the Indian reference: the sundry `Haanjis' and the Indian character who once again, is truly third world: a butler who meets his wife back home in India, only when he has the money for an air ticket. For the rest of the while, he lingers in permanent servitude, serving sherbets and milk to his Amrikan memsaabs. Tch tch!

The sequel may not be as spunky as the first film, yet, Sex and the City 2 has enough to keep the cosmo club grinning. Watch out for Sarah Jessica Parker's fashion folio and Kim Cattrall's wild abandon.