I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting a lot from Sex and the City 2. I’d seen a few reviews, and they weren’t great. That said, the last movie didn’t get great reviews either, and I enjoyed it for what it was — just a bit of fun.
That’s what I expected from round 2. But, unfortunately, I was way off mark this time.
Firstly, it was waaaaaaaaay too long. Two-and-a-half hours too long, actually. I spent the entire movie cringing. After we are witness to the gay wedding of the century (really, do we NEED to see Liza Minnelli gyrating in a leotard while singing ‘All the single ladies’? Umm, no), the real ‘plot’ (and I use the term loosely) begins to take shape. The (very basic) premise involves the four SATC girls — Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte — making their way to Abu Dhabi for an all-expenses-paid vacation.
And cue the ridiculous amount of thinly veiled racism… now.
I naively thought that the stabs at Muslim culture were going to stop after the early scene when the girls watched on in amusement as a woman in a niqab (full-faced veil) ate french fries. Unfortunately, they didn’t stop there. As my friend pointed out, one could write an entire PhD just about the later karaoke scene, when the camera panned around the room to women of different cultures while these white, ‘liberated’ Western women sang ‘I am woman’. And, yet, it still managed to get worse from that point on. I’ll spare you the details.
I don’t believe the film had a well-thought-out political agenda (at least, it certainly doesn’t look that way). But it did do its darndest to show us how much Muslim women desire to be as liberated as their Western counterparts. Will the SATC girls and their visit to Abu Dhabi improve Middle-Eastern relations in the slightest? I highly doubt it.
The laughs were few, but the cringes were many. The only marginally enjoyable element for me was admiring the decor of Carrie and Big’s New York apartment. The other women in the cinema seemed to enjoy themselves, but they did appear to have had quite a few cosmopolitans before entering.
For me, Sex and the City 2 was no piece of fluff to watch on a Friday night with your girlfriends — it was something I wished I had avoided. I want to forget this ever happened, and try my best to remember the hilarious and extremely clever TV shows.
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