As someone that only saw one episode of the hit HBO television series, the first Sex and the City movie was, for the most part, a nightmare. However, it did offer solid preparation for the two-years-later sequel that takes the excessive behavior of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) into territories I bet even the fans of the show may not expect.
Sex and the City 2 is about as offensive a film of its nature can get, although I believe that’s the point. I got the feeling writer-director Michael Patrick King listened to all the negative chatter surrounding the first film and thought to himself, “Oh yeah? Well I’ll show them!” and went far beyond every stereotype he could come up with. What’s most surprising about all of this is that I didn’t actually hate it. In fact, I mildly enjoyed myself is more like it.
Sure, it’s an awful movie. There is no point to it and the plot is non-existent, but that’s exactly what I expected. So when an exaggerated one-liner is tossed out or Samantha is seen in her glass-walled office with her underwear around her ankles while rubbing hormone therapy cream on her vagina, all I could do was laugh at the absurdity of it all. I even had fun writing that sentence.
I laughed at the fact the audience of women I saw it with were enjoying every minute of it. I laughed as Samantha humps the air yelling “Yes, I have sex!” while surrounded by an angry group of Emirati Arabs. I laughed at the awful outfits the ladies wear making them look like 65-year-old clowns pretending to be 25-year-old drag queens. There is a certain absurdity to this film that if you manage to peel away your hatred for its existence you can actually laugh at everything in and about it. After all, I can only assume everyone involved is doing the same thing. At least I hope they are.
What it boils down to is a story of four spoiled Manhattanites embracing their sense of entitlement while befouling the whole of the United Arab Emirates on an all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi. Sprinkled in for flavor, Liza Minnelli performs “Single Ladies” at a “gay wedding,” Penelope Cruz shows up for two minutes as someone other than Penelope Cruz and Miley Cyrus is included. The appearances by Minnelli, Cruz and Cyrus are surface level, just like the entire production… so you roll with it.
Sex and the City 2 is trash, but it has embraced that fact and is daring you to hate it. And should you hate it what do you achieve? A certain level of satisfaction that you weren’t taken in by Kim Cattrall’s foul mouth, menopause jokes and excessive leg-spreading? Does it mean you somehow rise above the film’s materialism? Sex and the City 2 is no different than a summer blockbuster with CGI aliens or parachuting tanks. It’s just a different genre. This is The A-Team for the fashion and sex-obsessed females that realize the absurdity of it all. It’s their fantasy world.
Does it matter it’s one of the most offensive films I have ever seen? It’s actively anti-Muslim, a leading black character is nowhere to be found (I guess Jennifer Hudson fulfilled that requirement with the first film), gays are treated as a sideshow, men are treated as caricatures (seriously, does Chris Noth even identify with his character?) and the women look like creatures. It gets even better when the Muslim women remove their traditional burqas to reveal their western outfits proclaiming the ladies from NYC are their true inspirations. You see, Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte are actually fashion superheroes and they now have a loyal following of closeted Superman-like friends in Southwest Asia! This is The Dark Knight for the lady folk… at least a certain population of the lady folk that will undoubtedly turn this into a box-office success.
This is not a movie critic’s film. I doubt you will find a regular critic that will give this anything higher than an above average rating, but it’s not a film to be scrutinized on those terms. It’s a playful fantasy where women can trample on all walks of life and insult anyone they please while sipping on Cosmopolitans and wearing hideous looking headwear. If you leave your disgust for everything this film stands for behind and laugh at the entire spectacle, you can actually have more fun than you really deserve to have with a film that never should have been made.
